


The Millennium Deal - Two: Eclipse

by Cara_Loup



Series: The Millennium Deal [3]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Telepathic Bond, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:07:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5390435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cara_Loup/pseuds/Cara_Loup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t Luke’s fault. He needed to think. He didn’t want to think about it. Just let it happen and confront the more complicated changes at their own pace. Han swallowed against the pressure of wasted time, of silence. “Luke, I—”<br/>A rustle somewhere at his back cut him off.<br/>Blaster raised before him, Han crept towards the corner — and wheeled at the soft click from an unsuspected direction. He managed to squeeze off one shot before something cold lashed around his throat and pulled tight.<br/>“Welcome,” mouthed a sullen voice by his ear. “Welcome to the land of the dead.”<br/>Mad sunspots exploded in his sight, reeled, spiraled and danced off into blackness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Millennium Deal - Two: Eclipse

** Two: Eclipse  **

The rain fizzled out when they turned off the main street at Matreme spaceport. Swathed in protective gear, a handful of vendors began reopening their stalls. Luke kept his eyes straight ahead as he walked past, Artoo trailing after him. Feeble daylight stumbled through the unpaved roads and alleys, glistening on the bodywork of occasional hovertrucks and sloping tin-roofs.

Dantooine had always been an underpopulated world, devoid of prized resources, but Imperial reprisals against the Rebellion had triggered another minor exodus. At least half the prefab structures that lined the streets had been abandoned to the corrosive forces of weather and oxidation a long time ago.

“It’s over there,” Luke said softly. Tacked onto the wiremesh door of a junkyard, a hand-painted sign read _Lemma’s Garage_. Artoo replied with pronounced stutters of his servo motors and bleeped a question. “Yes, you’re very convincing,” Luke assured him as they made their way down the potholed street. “Just remember to keep it up.”

A windy quiet enfolded him, and it felt odd only because he hadn’t traveled anywhere without an entourage of diplomats and Alliance officers for months. Fragments of a rainbow glittered against the departing squall line in the west. Luke pushed his shoulder into the rickety door and extended his senses as he stepped through, carefully searching the area for signs of sentient presence.

They’d arrived early to inspect the terrain, but their contact might well have opted for similar precautions. He’d picked a different locale for these covert transactions each time, and according to Intell’s chief of operations, the man’s insistence on complete anonymity bordered on the lower fringe of paranoia. Beyond that, Intell knew nothing about his identity and business, except that his operations base had to be located somewhere in the Iridys sector.

Wheels crunching through gravel and rusty metal splinters, Artoo hobbled along, past half-finished groundcars tinkered together from the remains of other vehicles, binary cleaners, and the cannibalized bodies of some ancient household droids. A cool breeze joined the tension that crawled down Luke’s spine, and a subtle shift of energies stirred through the Force.

Within moments, footsteps overlaid the distant drone of some agricultural engine. A short, wiry man rounded the carcass of a dirtmover and strolled over to them, both hands stuffed into the baggy pockets of his coveralls, a portable toolkit dangling from his belt.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said amiably and ran a hand across thinning black hair. “What can I do for you?”

“I work for Captain Penwith.”

The code name barely kindled a spark in the little man’s eyes. “And the good captain recommended this facility?” he returned. “Trouble with your astromech droid?”

“Yeah.” Playing along, Luke tapped an access panel in Artoo’s metal body. That he couldn’t sense another living creature nearby didn’t rule out the existence of surveillance equipment. “It’s gotta be a hardware problem,” he improvised. “Some coordination circuit malfunction, but I don’t have the spare parts to fix it.”

“Let me see.” The man knelt down to examine Artoo who gave an instant, pained squeal. One of his compartments popped open at the touch from square-tipped fingers. “Yep, looks pretty bad...”

The droid hastened to confirm that assessment with an amplified wail.

“You’ll be all right soon.” Luke patted the hemispherical top. “No need to get upset.”

“You’re talking to a mechanical?” Thin brows climbed in ostensible amusement. “Where’s the little guy’s counterpart?”

“Back home.” Luke paused and wondered if he was supposed to prove that he’d made planetfall alone, as previously agreed. He shrugged. “I got here in an old fighter. No room for another droid. So... how bad is it?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed.” The man gained his feet with surprising agility and reached into his toolkit, extracting a small plasma torch. “A control chip’s fried, and some of the wiring got torn up.”

Luke bent closer, pretending to study Artoo’s exposed circuits while the flare and smolder of the plasma torch slid across the man’s face. He was middle-aged, resilience and alertness defining his angular features by equal degrees. Nothing in his expression betrayed the casual control he projected.

“We need to talk,” Luke mouthed.

Narrowed eyes gave him a quick scrutiny, and for a fraction Luke caught something beyond shrewd calculation in them. Surprise, perhaps. Or resignation.

“Not here,” his contact said over the sharp hiss of the torch and slipped his hand into Artoo’s compartment again.

Even though he’d been watching closely, Luke only noticed that a data chip had been deposited inside when Artoo flashed a red light at him. “Looks like that’s the part I was missing,” he said slowly.

“I think so.” The man straightened and thumbed off the plasma torch. “There, I don’t think you need to worry about nasty surprises anymore. You’re paying cash, aren’t you?”

“Will Corellian currency do for you?”

“That’ll do nicely.” The man smiled, exposing round white teeth, and extended a hand.

Luke covered a moment’s hesitation as he dug into his pocket, producing a sealed stack of credits. If he left it at that, their mysterious contact might simply disappear and leave them waiting for the next rendezvous. And if he lowered his shields for just a moment, he might sense the drifts of intent and motivation behind the man’s facade... Artoo whistled softly.

“Thanks for your help,” Luke said firmly. “If I have need of your services again—”

“You’ll _know_ where to find me,” the stranger said easily, but the slight emphasis on one word told Luke enough. A fine thrill blew down the back of his neck. If he could rely on one thing, it was the way crucial moments blossomed in the Force and took hold of him.

Half an hour later, he slid the data chip into the reader of his X-wing’s flight console. A set of coordinates brightened on the display.

APOLOGIES FOR THE HISTRIONICS, a typed addendum scrolled across the glassy square, BUT WE MUST BE CAREFUL. TAKE OFF AT ONCE AND MEET ME AT THE RENDEZVOUS.

* * *

A burst of striated light shrank rapidly, settling into a distant constellation of stars as the fighter’s sublight drive kicked in. Moments later, Luke guided his X-wing down to a refueling outpost on the edge of a twin-star system. Constructed from plasteel panels and crystalplex modules in the shape of a hive, the station was run by droids and a taciturn insectoid species. Only the rhythmic clicks of their antennae and the bass purr of atmosphere generators beneath the deck plates wove through the vast silence.

Luke found his contact waiting for him in the sloping corridor outside the refueling bays. The man had exchanged his oil-stained coveralls for a charcoal jumpsuit, and a heavy gunbelt rode on his hip. Relaxed as his pose might seem, everything about him suggested the hair-trigger reflexes of a combat veteran.

A perfect choice for covert operations, Luke thought as he walked towards him. Essentially nondescript, except for those big, dark eyes.

“Glad you could make it,” the man said, his articulation of Basic free of any accent that might have indicated his background. “And now perhaps you’ll tell me why the New Republic chose to send a Jedi knight this time.”

Though Luke stifled his impulsive reaction, something in his face must have betrayed discomfort.

“Yeah, I know who you are,” the man confirmed and held up a hand. “My name’s Castor. Pleased to meet you.” He flashed Luke a crooked smile. “I was told that you might show up sometime...”

“Really.” Luke took another moment to cover his surprise. “Who—?”

“The guy I work for,” Castor replied, anticipating him. “And before you say anything else, I think he’s the one you wanna see.”

“If it was his decision to supply us with information about the syndicate, yes.”

“Sure was.” Exasperation curled the narrow mouth for a moment. “Believe me, I wouldn’t’ve advised it, but the boss can get pretty stubborn about some things.”

“I have to see him.” Luke lowered his voice, all too conscious of the metallic whispers their conversation stirred through the empty corridor. “Recent developments are forcing us to take action against the syndicate.”

He’d barely finished when a maintenance droid scuttled out of an intersecting passage and trundled past. Castor trailed it with a skeptical glance. “You wanna think twice before you invite that kind of trouble.” He scratched at his chin, eyes still averted. “The boss won’t be happy to hear this.”

“When can I see him?” Luke pressed.

An automated hatch clanged shut after the droid, and Castor turned back, his lips pursed. “Shortly, if you’re ready to go. I’ll transfer the vector and coordinates for the next jump once we’re in orbit.” He leveled an index finger at Luke’s chest. “And from that point on, no subspace calls and no digital postcards to your folks back home, understood? If I pick up any transmissions, you’ll find yourself in some dead corner of space without a return ticket.”

“No problem,” Luke assured him, puzzled by Castor’s readiness to comply. All the secrecy, the precautions and safeguards — and now this. “Thanks,” he added.

The little man gave a curt nod. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

 

COORDINATES DO NOT MATCH WITH ANY CHARTED STAR SYSTEM, the X-wing’s navicomputer translated a sequence of troubled bleeps from Artoo.

“Don’t worry,” Luke said into the voice pickup. “It’s just another jump point where we’ll change vectors, not our final destination.”

HOW MANY MORE? the droid’s instant retort glimmered in edgy red.

“I don’t know.” Leaning back in his seat, Luke let the iridescent colors of hyperspace flood mind and vision.

He didn’t have the slightest idea where they were headed as Castor directed him through one hyperspace jump after the next. It was pretty much like being led around blindfolded, skipping lightyears and interstellar gulfs in an elaborate choreography of detours. With part of his mind, Luke supposed that he should feel at least a measure of concern, but the thought burned off like a fog in full daylight. One jump followed the next, and as the fighter slipped through temporal folds, his awareness stretched into the gaps with unlimited expectation. A strange excitement gripped him, a lightheaded ecstasy of flight and isolation.

When they dropped out of lightspeed the next time, a brilliant white star streaked its unfiltered light across five small planets in close orbit. The comlink crackled within a second.

“We’re here,” Castor’s tinny voice announced. “Prepare for landing approach.”

All through the slow dive towards the heart of the system, the primary’s radiance broke over the canopy. Forming a misty halo in which the planets swam like pearls in a green river. As they rode past their gravity wells, sensors picked up massive readings in every spectrum. Teeming oceans and forests registered on the scopes, interspersed with the snappy signatures of artificial energy sources, spiking from the untamed growth of tropical climates.

Castor’s freighter swerved towards the second planet at a leisurely cruising speed. The blue curve of horizon opened and swallowed them into stratified mists and migrant cloud piles. When they leveled out, they were skimming across a jungle like an enormous, scruffy carpet, interrupted only by occasional rock outcrops.

“Point five degrees north-east,” Castor radioed. “Cut speed on my mark.”

Below, a mirror surface flashed silver as it caught the sun, brief bursts of brightness from the deep blue stillness of an oval lake.

Luke engaged the repulsors and copied Castor’s landing approach. The small freighter’s underbelly ruffled treetops as it sank towards a rocky plateau, wide enough to accommodate several craft. Solar reflectors glinted from the green tangles some hundred yards ahead, then the trenchant flares collapsed back into the clear angles of a rooftop.

As soon as the fighter’s canopy lifted, humidity enveloped Luke like a blanket. He stripped the flightsuit off his clothes before climbing from the cockpit. Castor came striding out of the dust swirls kicked up by the freighter’s jets.

“Welcome to Ylab,” he said with a grin and swiped at his forehead, though his skin looked dry and cool.

Luke returned a smile with only half his mind. The name meant nothing to him, but the air was alive with moisture steaming from soil and vegetation, and the rich, heavy scents prickled in his lungs. With each breath, a different kind of tension entered him. It pushed thickly through his veins as he followed Castor towards the structure glimpsed during touchdown. After the long flight, gravity dragged at him, his coordination of pace and movement still slightly off.

A strip of well-trodden ground extended in front of the house, its porch weather-bleached to the sallow shade of driftwood. While the roof had been fitted with new collector panels, one of the front windows was missing a pane, and the wide open door sat askance on its hinges.

Castor hunched his shoulders. “Wait here,” he instructed from the lowest porch step. “Looks like the boss is home, but I’d better warn him he’s got a visitor.”

“Sure.” Luke stood back, a little dazed by the inrush of newness and sensation. Recent rainfalls had left the ground sodden and glistened on the profusion of greens, yellows and vermilion. Vines and flowering parasites nestled into the knotholes of giant tree trunks. Beneath the fan of webbed branches, the hum of insects rose and fell. Humidity settled against his skin with a cooling caress that couldn’t account for the sudden swell of anticipation.

“Hey, cap!” Castor called. Wooden floorboards creaked under his steps as he entered the house. From the back, another voice answered him, snapping something that might have been a curse.

The sound of it leapt across and struck a buried nerve. Luke swung around while recognition coursed upward, drawing diffuse sentiments into sudden focus. He’d felt it all along, but he’d refused to let himself know the truth for what it was.

Approaching footfalls gained unnatural definition and rooted him to the spot. The sharp-edged sound of boots on hardwood. A sudden gust of warm air against his face, blowing down over the jungle’s edge.

“What the hell’re you thinking?” the second voice grumbled. “You’re supposed to deliver, not bring ‘em here for a chat.”

“Yeah, with one exception,” Castor retorted caustically.

Sunlight strafed his face as he stepped out onto the porch again, squinting, but Luke glanced past him, straight at the man who’d emerged at his shoulder.

“Damn.” Han stood motionless in the doorway, half in shadow. He’d unbuttoned the loose shirt over his bloodstriped pants, his face and chest several shades darker than Luke recalled. A relentless sun had traced tawny glints across the fall of dark hair. “I don’t believe this.”

 _You’d better_ , Luke thought. For the moment, every word had dried up in his throat, and his smile formed shakily. Of all the things he might have expected to feel, only relief pushed to the front and surged. It tore loose when Han bounded down the steps.

Moving on autopilot, Luke jogged across and gripped hard at his shoulders. Wrapping Han in a hug that outlasted mutual surprise by several seconds. _Real_ , was all he could think, _real and here_.

Han pulled away with the same reluctance, his fingers still digging into Luke’s upper arms. A short, breathless laugh broke the stunned silence. “Gods-be-damned, kid, how in all hells did you get here?”

“Castor took care of the navigation.” Luke watched that familiar, lopsided grin tug at Han’s mouth, the carefree delight that sparked in his eyes. “All I had to do was tag along.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s not what I meant.” Han shook his head as if to realign the facts. “You’re not workin’ for Intell, are you?”

“Not usually, no.” His own grin came easily now, while he measured countless small changes against memory.

“Sounds like there’s a long story behind this.” Han reserved it for later with a wave of one hand. “You wanna come inside? Take a look around?”

At his back, Castor made a move for the footpath. “Guess I’ll be on my way and leave you guys to it,” he said, sliding Han a quizzical glance. “Unless we’ve got business to discuss?”

“Nothing that can’t wait ‘til tomorrow.” Han watched his associate leave with a distracted frown. “Hey, Cas!” he called in afterthought. “Thanks, okay?”

“Don’t mention it.” The little man’s steps blended in with the warbling, rustling sounds that formed a thick pall over the tropical forest.

As they crossed the porch together, Luke fumbled to loosen his collar. The house breathed coolness like a casual invitation. Han paused for another shake of the head and a self-conscious grin. “Been a long time, Luke.”

Too many possible replies offered themselves, stumbling up heavy with recollection. Luke managed a tight nod and glanced into the shaded interior of the house, charting a path that cut clear into the present. “So this is where you live.”

“Sort of, yeah.”

“I never thought you’d settle down somewhere. Even temporarily.”

“Wouldn’t call it settling down. Time I get to spend here’s limited, but it’s a good place to come home to... every once in a while.” Han gave the ramshackle door a friendly kick. “It ain’t much, but it’s shaping up since I got the roof fixed.”

In the hallway, ragged green stains memorized long neglect, announcing where the damp had foraged over the years. Han rubbed a thumb across cracking plaster. “It’ll be a while ‘til I can get it all done up. Three bedrooms, and there’s not much furniture either... Who cares. I don’t need much anyway.”

“I’m used to bachelor dens,” Luke said lightly. “Why don’t you just give me the guided tour?”

More than anything, it was an excuse for watching Han. The smooth tan that discounted years and mileage, shaggy hair spilling loose strands over the shirt collar. The old, rangy walk as Han showed him around, his lazy confidence more pronounced, set at ease by the life he’d fashioned for himself.

For a moment or two, Luke thought of his assignment. Distant like something printed on Intell’s pale green foils, a disjointed cavalcade of instructions that no longer matched the decoding template. Had Rieekan or Teragk ever suspected anything and decided not to mention it to their latest recruit? Though he’d often wondered if Intell kept tabs on Han, Luke had consciously refrained from inquiries. How could they not have guessed?

“Kitchen. Bath and shower.” Han hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “We’re using water from the lagoon... Come on, have a look.”

Luke followed him into an airy room that showed the clearest marks of occupancy. Between a workbench and a com unit, comfortable chairs and a low couch had been distributed without pattern. Manuals, datacards and drained cups littered most every surface. On the far side, tall glass doors opened onto a large veranda.

“We were sloshing ‘round in rainwater when the local realtor tried to sell me this place for a luxury retreat.” Han paused by the doors and glanced skyward as if to dare another wet intrusion through the newly mended roof. “But then I walked out here and it felt just right...”

Luke joined him on a semicircular platform that jutted out over the water. The back of the house rose from the lagoon on thick buttonwood pilings, like an ocean steamer propped against a seaweed-cushioned reef. On every side of the basin, rampant fauna seemed to breathe moisture that sheened rocks and foliage in a secretive glow.

“Nice view, huh?” Han moved up to his side. “Sometimes I spend the whole night out here.”

“It’s incredible.” Luke breathed his fill of the sweet, heavy air. Furtive like daydreams in a waking mind, fish glistened through the green water, silvery shadows merging with the ripples where smooth rivulets cascaded into the pool. The sight sprawled before him like something that could never be touched.

“We could go for a swim later, after the rain.” Han tilted his head at the sky and the high masses of clouds. A faint electrical charge thickened the atmosphere.

“How did you get here?” Luke asked. The wooden railing rough under his hand, warm with an absolute memory of the sun. “I mean, why this world?”

“Don’t tell me I never mentioned it to you. Been wanting to visit for years...” Han leaned against the railing, sparing a fond grin for some distant event. “Some of my buddies from the old days used to rave about it whenever they got the chance. Called it Pirate’s Haven. The perfect place for retirement.”

“From what I’ve heard, you’re far too active for retirement.”

“Couldn’t stand it if it got too peaceful.” Han chuckled. “And it’s not as lonely as it looks. There’s a settlement on the other side of the lake, and that’s where we keep the Falcon berthed most of the time.”

“I noticed several outposts during the landing approach,” Luke returned absently. A stillness remained in him as he studied Han’s profile, his eyes reflecting the jungle colors, green mixed with hazy gold, and he had to drag his attention away from the reality of Han’s presence.

“What?” Han threw him a sidelong glance, amusement hovering in the corners of his mouth.

“You look... younger,” Luke said. “Like this kind of life’s good for you.”

“You think?”

The first, heavy raindrops hit the water with percussive plops. Intersecting circles riddled the lagoon’s surface, trailing patterns that merged and fell apart.

“Here we go again.” Han straightened. “Took me a while to get used to the climate and the constant rainfalls. Now... You hungry? I could fix us something.”

“What, no food processor?” Luke held out a hand, palm upturned, and felt the raindrops’ impact as each in turn splattered against his skin.

“Nope. I’d need a bigger power generator for that kind of equipment, but I’ve got some canned stuff in the pantry.”

“That’s a relief,” Luke said dryly. “I think I’d be worried if you’d taken up cooking.”

 

A short while later, he caught himself eating with ravenous, thoughtless appetite. Vaulting across temporal latitudes, he’d lost track of time as much as the cycles of sleeping and eating.

“Let me know if I should haul in more groceries.” Han cocked an eyebrow at his rapidly emptied plate. “You look skinny. Artoo’s still not developed any maternal instincts, I take it.”

“He helps me keep in shape though.” Luke deposited his dishes in the sink, and within the short instant it took him to turn back, countless questions rushed forward, each pushing for precedence. He didn’t know where to start. “Who’s Castor?” was the first thing that tumbled out. “How did you meet him? Tell me everything.”

“You first.” Grinning widely, Han tossed him a native fruit with leathery skin. “Dessert. Let’s sit down in the lounge, it’s gonna be more comfortable.”

Rain filled the lounge with incessant drumbeats. Down the glass doors shimmered long, pallid ribbons, lit by the distant pulsations of lightning.

“And it’s not even rain season yet,” Han commented as he flopped down on the couch. “So ― how’s your Jedi thing coming along? And how’s the Republic these days?” He relaxed against the padded arm, chin propped on one hand. “I’ve tried to follow developments as much as possible, but news tends to be dated by the time I catch up with it.”

“Well, the latest is that the Mon Cal might become full members again.” Luke peeled distractedly at the fruit. Beneath the knotty skin, dark seed clusters were embedded in the bright flesh. “They’re still uneasy about some of the government’s policies, but it looks as if they’ll try changing things from within.”

“Sounds like somebody worked a real miracle there,” Han said bluntly. “You?”

Luke shook his head with a soft laugh. “My involvement was marginal. I’m still having a hard time getting used to diplomacy and all the double-talk it takes to reconcile so many different ideas.”

“Tell me all about it.”

“There’s just no way around compromising, I guess, when you’re dealing with such a variety of member worlds and cultures, but—” He glanced down at his hands, considering. “We’ve got crises breaking out everywhere, and it’s impossible for us to get involved in each and every conflict.”

Han bent a searching look on him. “And you really hate that, don’t you?”

“I can’t just shrug off all the problems we’re leaving unsolved.”

“You’ve never been good at protecting yourself from feeling responsible and gettin’ hurt in the process,” Han grumbled, “just everyone else — and that’s a fact.”

“I don’t know...” Luke trailed off, uncertain how to explain.

A surreptitious kind of self-protection had stolen over him in ways that escaped rational justification and control. For several seconds, the tapdance of rain on glass pattered into the silence. When he looked up, Han’s unrelenting glance still probed him, then swerved aside, into the liquid twilight.

Han pushed to his feet. “I’ll get us a drink.”

He returned from the kitchen a minute later, carrying two glasses, a half-empty bottle tucked under one arm.

“Upland malt,” Luke said after a first sip of the strong liquor.

“Yeah, hard to come by out here, but I’ve got my sources.” Han frowned midway, his own glass poised between thumb and middle finger as he sat down again. “Hey, how would _you_ know? Don’t tell me you’ve developed a taste for Corellian firewater.”

“I’ve lived on Corellia for the past couple of months,” Luke reminded him. “More or less.”

“That’s right, I heard about that.” Fleeting sarcasm touched Han’s mouth as he raised his glass and took a long swig. “Here’s to Corellia...” He bounced from the couch again in another moment, a shot of something electric to every move as he paced to the veranda doors. “And you really think it’s gonna work out this time? Same people, same old patterns and problems...”

The rain was starting to let up, infrequent dazzles of lightning tracing pale reflections across Han’s profile.

“Nothing for it but to try and make it work,” Luke answered in a deliberately casual tone. After so many times of rehashing the same disagreements, he wasn’t going to argue the point. “We all tried to achieve too much too soon. At least now we’re more realistic about our options.”

Over his shoulder, Han slanted him a skeptical glance, clearly convinced that he’d never make a textbook example of realistic attitudes. Luke shrugged, discarding the subject for the time being.

“Castor says you expected me,” he started before he’d given any thought to less complicated subjects.

“Not really.” Han turned sideways and leaned his shoulder into the rain-slicked glass. “I just thought Intell might give you a hint sometime, or you’d figure things out for yourself.”

“For all I know, they don’t have a clue,” Luke threw in.

“Guess that means my cover’s better than I thought.” Han gestured moderate surprise at the gloom outside. “Anyway, I told Castor to bring you back here, just in case.”

 _One exception_ , Luke remembered. “Leia could’ve shown up—”

“Leia?” The derisive chuckle that followed didn’t quite cover how Han’s tone had softened with reminiscence. But if time and distance had brought out regrets, his expression didn’t reveal them. “She’s too much of a celebrity for that kind of assignment. Intell would never put her in a tight spot.”

“She’s worried about the syndicate,” Luke offered. “Ever since they attacked a Sullustian convoy.”

“So they finally figured that the bad guys can be just as dangerous when they don’t come dressed in Imperial colors.” Han pushed away from the door with a brisk motion. “Guess that means my reports aren’t just gathering dust in some bottom drawer.”

“If they’d realized where the information came from, they might’ve taken the matter more seriously. Why didn’t you tell them?”

“’Cause I didn’t want them to come preaching duty and patriotic bullshit to me,” Han retorted, a hot charge in his clipped tones. “Spare everybody the trouble of trying to collar me back into the military fold.”

Luke shifted in his chair and tried not to seem so thunderstruck at the bluntness of Han’s reply.

“Luke, listen... All I’m sayin’ is that _if_ I come back, it’s gotta be on my own terms.”

“I understand.” He might have guessed that Han would see through his forced dispassion.

“That was the whole point to going away.” The sudden tension faded from Han’s jawline when he moved again, as if playing with another thought. “Well, now that you’re here, let’s not talk about me all the time.” He paused behind Luke’s chair and landed a hand on his shoulder. “What do you do besides work? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“I’m trying to learn as much as I can... about the Force, the old Jedi order.”

“Sure sounds like work to me.” Fond mockery surfaced in Han’s voice and connected easily with a thousand scattered recollections.

“It’s more than that.” He looked out across the veranda, at a world buried in mist. The warmth of Han’s hand leavened through his tunic with the directness of sunlight at noon.

“Still not letting anyone get close to you,” Han observed calmly, without the hint of a question. “Except Leia.”

“It’s not that easy,” Luke said, defensiveness snapping from him before he could help it. “No matter who I meet, their minds are always full of stories and rumors. They know who I am before they ever get to know me. That kind of closeness... in their minds, they predict me, and it’s just so... stifling.”

He broke off. He hadn’t meant to say this much, or to make it sound so absurd, but the long trip, the spurious heat of alcohol in his veins, and the bone-deep surprise of this reunion had all gotten under his guard. He felt strangely exposed, and the clear look of sympathy in Han’s eyes touched him with ambiguous regret.

Without another word, Han took the drained glass from his hand and poured him another shot of the highly prized malt. Though Luke made himself relax into the chair, part of him was coiled like a spring. And if he pulled it loose, heavens knew what else would come undone.

“Sometimes it’s like living with a shadow,” he said. “I talk to people, and it’s as if they’re looking past me. And there’s a lot of talk because I live alone.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Han shook his head as he wandered back to the couch. “Don’t let ‘em push you into set patterns. You’ve always had to deal with people’s expectations, right from the moment you shot down the Death Star. And you’ve come a long way since you let that kinda crap make you nervous. Just go with what feels right.”

“I didn’t mean to complain.”

“I don’t mind.” Han’s grin came fast and loose, kindling a wanton surge of sentiment. Familiar warmth and trust rolling back through him with the momentum of seven long months.

Luke glanced out across the veranda, at a landscape without permanence, glittering mists dissolving under the swift hand of dusk. A comfortable heaviness settled over him, fatigue blending easily through amazement that lingered like a mild intoxicant in every nerve.

“So how’s everybody else?” Han asked. “I almost ran into Lando, a couple of weeks back. He was scheduled for maintenance on Ord Mantell, and if I’d stayed around a few more hours...” He pulled up his shoulders and swallowed the rest with another swig from his glass.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Lando’s smart enough, but sometimes he just can’t keep his mouth shut.” Han picked himself up to push the glass doors open, and a wave of moist, warm air sloshed into the room.

Outside, the local breed of crickets had started up a grating chant that would bring on the night. All the vibrant rainforest odors rushed Luke’s senses and stirred through a loosened web of thought. “I don’t know where to start.”

Han sprawled loose-limbed on the couch, the blanched light shifting over him. “Start anywhere. We’ve got time.”

* * *

When he woke up, he was back on Yavin Four. An early-morning promise of sweltering heat beset the room with spicy, humid scents. His pants and undershirt were plastered uncomfortably against his skin, and he couldn’t recall why he’d fallen asleep half dressed.

Luke opened his eyes to a whitewashed ceiling, overcast with fine cracks and a muted shadow pattern of branches and foliage. Between the cracks and the shadows, he made sense of where he was and why. Han was asleep on the other side of the broad bed, his long, even breaths moving in a barely perceptible rhythm through the mattress.

Luke turned his head slowly. Across Han’s shoulder flared a scrap of piercing blue sky in the upper right corner of the window. From the slight discomfort of his clinging, rumpled clothes, he finally gathered the energy to lever out of the dreamy quiet, moving gingerly as if he might scare off a memory, or a fantasy.

In the shower, he peeled off his pants and underwear and dumped everything on the floor, letting cold water pelt down his body until the blood prickled under his skin. A little while later, he stood on the veranda, cooled air touching his bare flesh, and looked out into soft green silence while his hair dried slowly. The sun had just climbed over some hidden horizon, threading pale filaments through the mists that wreathed the trees. Recollection emerged leisurely, out of a haze.

They’d talked late into the night, until tiredness ambushed him with such force that he’d almost dozed off in the chair. When the drowsiness lifted again for a moment, Han bent over him with a rueful grin. _Didn’t mean to keep you up all night. Bedroom’s over there. Just crash whenever you like_.

He hadn’t mentioned that it was his own bedroom, though perhaps none of the others had yet been furnished to accommodate visitors.

Luke walked back inside, still surrounded by the lush scents and sun-drenched hues of Yavin Four. The dizzy spell of liberation, of having been uprooted and transplanted to a different soil, each day slamming into him with new demands and opportunities.

Han didn’t seem to have stirred at all in the meantime. A pillow sheltered his face against diffuse brightness, the sheet draped around his frame in random crinkles as if someone else had gently dropped it across him, cradling the defenseless sprawl of his body. One hand rested flat against the mattress, splayed fingers locating him in a maze of dreams. After several moments, Luke turned his glance aside, as if his close attention could create a disturbance.

When he eased back down on the bed, a visceral spark of energy canceled every notion of going back to sleep. And with every moment that passed, the warmth of Han’s body settled closer around him. All Luke could see of him now were the dark strands that curled slightly against the nape of his neck and a brown shoulder over the whiteness of the sheet. Like something hauled from a far corner of unconsciousness, the sight kicked over buried memories.

Of sharing a bed with Biggs at the Darklighter farm when they’d dawdled too long over tinkering with their skyhoppers; of snapping awake at dawn, too much energy trapped in every muscle. Of furtive boyhood excitements and the way Han’s low, husky laugh would resonate in the pit of his stomach, years later; the laid-back assurance in Han’s body language that spelled challenge and sex. A parallel awareness weaving in and out of their friendship, never quite hitching on conscious thought.

With each breath, Luke felt the vast hollow in his body open up wider, bewildered by things half-sensed and refused out of habit. Truth tugged sharply at him. Perhaps he should get up after all.

It was then that Han turned over, raking sleep-ruffled hair back from his forehead. Breaking the spell with a long, luxurious stretch of arms and back.

As he watched Han shake himself out of sleep, Luke felt nothing but the simple gladness of being here. “Did I wake you?” he asked softly.

Propped on an elbow, Han considered him like a sudden discovery, private amusement curling his mouth.

“Good morning,” he murmured and leaned over.

For a moment, Luke thought he was reaching for something on the nightstand on his side of the bed. Next, a wild heartbeat pounded in his throat, and his breath caught at the sensation of Han’s mouth brushing against his own with perfect, unhurried ease. It was over by the time rationality reared to claim that this could by no means be happening.

But the brief contact lingered clear like a taste on his lips while his mind scrambled roughly for sensible thoughts. He couldn’t think what to say or do, suspended on a brink as if part of him was still asleep and pushed recklessly towards waking.

Across the short distance of several inches, Han met his eyes, pinned him to the awareness of discrepant notions running riot, to the unsteady cadence of his own pulse. He couldn’t move out of the target of that gaze.

Abruptly certain that Han had drawn back to give him room for choice, Luke swallowed thickly.

“Do that again.” The words came without much of a voice, his throat almost closing up. But with those words, he’d pried himself loose, unlocking fantasies that lay buried in sensation.

A warm hand moved to cup his chin lightly, tilting his head up, and he reached back without a thought. Filled to bursting with expectation like the night before Uncle Owen had taken him for a first orbital flight, like the rush of energy that nearly tore him apart over the Death Star, anticipation so absolute that nothing existed except the next breath, the look in Han’s eyes as he bent his head, the near inaudible rustle of the sheet as his chest rose and fell.

 _You can’t want me_ —

And then it was like nothing he could brace for. A strong current ran through him at the gentle movement of Han’s mouth on his own, reversing the polarity of everything familiar.

Eyes wide open, Luke shifted with the fine tremor — Han’s lashes beating like a breath against his skin, impossibly thick and soft up close — and his fingers clasped hard around Han’s neck. _Did you think about this — all this time — did you ever think about doing this before?_

Between thought and sensation, he held himself still, in a margin of morning light that reflected off the water. Caught to the freedom, to the sharp boundary of this feeling, a limit inside him he had yet to overcome.

Until the pressure of Han’s mouth opened his own, and he breathed again, into the sudden depth of contact. Eyes closing, hypnotic pleasure sheltered in velvet dimness, while his heart thundered up against his breastbone. _I didn’t know_. But reality struck with the beat of a bass drum deep in his body. Filled him with the taste, and the heat that shadowed it, moment to moment, rising out of breathless, heart-pounding surprise. It wasn’t as if he’d never kissed before. It was just...

Hands curved around Han’s neck, gripping tighter at the gasp that hitched in his chest. A flicker of tongue across his lower lip and teeth, searching, striking flintsparks through his belly. Entering deeply, then breaking for air — for a short, fretful breath — and they were kissing again, absorbed into a deeper, hungry closeness. Wanting, tasting, until shock yielded again into pleasure, a thrill that veered through his nerves and stormed him, swept him past caution and surprise in a heartbeat.

Han’s fingers traveled down the side of his neck to the hollow of his throat, a gradual journey extended with every throb of pulse. And his own hands were claiming more, more of this heedless, lavish intimacy, in a flurry of exploration. A stretch of muscles down Han’s back, pulling taut, the quickened cadence of breathing. With the startled flight of sensations, Luke’s hands ranged from place to place, and his shoulders arched, nerve endings catching alight when Han’s fingers circled his nipple, tantalizing and slow. Skin prickled and tightened as a callused palm rubbed across it. Pleasure twisted restlessly, achingly in his groin, and Luke fought for breath, for control —

“Han...” His fingers found a dampness in the dark hair, a coolness that lingered at the back of Han’s neck. He paused, covering it with his palm.

“I got up for a swim earlier.” Han released him, the sound of his voice a needed reassurance, yet incredibly changed with that husky edge of wanting.

“I didn’t notice.” Luke let his breath go consciously, as if he’d held it since the night before, and some of the tension eased with it.

“You weren’t supposed to.”

Murmured words and breath passing his lips like a playful preamble. Whatever Luke might have said went adrift in another kiss and slid from mind like a shadow. The tightness in his chest uncoiled and sank low, to the bottom of his spine, spreading dark and liquid pressure through the hollow behind his groin.

He stirred to every sweep of Han’s fingers down his torso, to his hips and flanks, a careful inspection of secret delights. No one had ever taken the time to learn him like this, a close study of every small reaction, and yet he knew he couldn’t have wanted it. Not like this. Nothing could have been so simple.

He held on hard. Naked under the thin sheet that revealed him to Han’s touch. A hollowed palm cupped him lightly, and Luke bit his lip at the swift thrill that pierced his center and jolted his erection against the pressure of Han’s hand. Where Han’s mouth nuzzled the bottom of his throat, he traced the flicker of a brief, absorbed smile.

Luke threaded his fingers into the ruffled hair and brought Han’s head up. A dark gaze captured his.

“I’ve missed you.”

Words that no longer covered half of what he felt, in a voice no longer his own. He wound his arm around Han’s waist, pressing their bodies closer together. Han’s skin against his own, everywhere. He wouldn’t consider what this meant, where it would take or leave them, not now. His mouth tracing the ridge of collarbone, the smooth curve like a thin, hard wing. A spate of perceptions burst on him, marked the lines and angles of Han’s body on his skin. The lighter echo of a second heartbeat where their chests were touching, equal hardness pressed up against his belly. Every part of him focused on the slow directness of Han’s touch, concentrated and blindingly sensual, like the white heat of day that washed every color from the sky. Each sensation set apart, plummeting like a stone to the bottom of a river.

But too much feeling broke open like an old injury, unknown sadness drawn out of him, translating into the slide of hot stings on his skin. His inner shields faltered, prised apart by the sure knowledge of hands that urged need to the surface. Nothing could stop that now. At the back of his mind, apprehension beat out a warning, the same, familiar warning like a sudden flare. He would be invaded, revealed, he would know —

Once again, he would crash into an absolute limit. Would watch, inevitably sobered, from a narrow margin of safety, a stranger in his own body.

“What is it?” Han mouthed close by his ear. Hands raised to Luke’s face and traced the line of his cheekbones, a gentle query.

 _I can’t_. But it wasn’t true, not anymore.

With a breath passed the terrible moment of suspension — no fall, just flight — and it opened him wide. No divide in him, nothing that divorced mind from touch and motion, not this time. Close to laughter, he looked into Han’s eyes.

“Nothing.”

He couldn’t explain. Didn’t have to, not when Han’s desire rushed him like this, irresistible and innocent like brilliant daylight. Releasing the doubts that had held him hostage for so long. Easy, almost too easy to believe it was real — but it didn’t cut, didn’t scald. Straightforward passion poured into him from the glide of Han’s fingers. He breathed in and out, filling himself with the essence of this freedom. And some clouding emotion burned clear into hunger.

A first moan vibrated low in his throat when Han moved over him, and he gripped Han’s shoulders, drawing him down to feel the full weight of his body and let it take his breath. He sprawled his legs, matching pace and pressure as if his body recognized Han’s rhythm.

Crinkled and warm on his skin, the sheet was still trapped somewhere between them, but Luke couldn’t let go long enough to remove it. His hands traveled the length of Han’s back, skimming muscles that pulled tight and slackened in time with the taunting pressure of his hips. Coming, receding with incursions of heat until it throbbed hard between his hipbones, and he pushed up against Han, riding a high tide of feeling — and no thought, no question, just the bruising force of pleasure. Too fast, arousal drove its dissolving edge into him, and the urge to lose himself thickened behind his groin.

Reaching between them, Luke stroked his fingers over the hard shaft, excited pulsations of blood echoed in a soft groan. To be touching Han like this... as if he’d always known that he could, to feel Han rise and harden further against his palm — amazement snapped through him again, a jolt like high voltage — hot and hard and silky with need.

Between one breath and the next, countless details flooded him, like the brightest points on a star chart. The friction of Han’s hip against his inner thigh. The sharp intake of breath, the push, the tremor under his hand.

There was another moment when their eyes locked, clear with acknowledgment and raw with desire. Then the melting, clenching sensation, the clasp of Han’s fingers linked tightly through his own. Luke gripped back hard. Sounds of mindless pleasure finally stormed out, catching raggedly in his throat. Release burned through him, wrenched long shudders from his muscles, and blind lightning pulsed everywhere, spilling over with a shout.

Han’s climax suffused his senses in a second or a century, prolonged the ripples that passed through his flesh into a fleeting illusion of infinity. Luke arched into the powerful thrusts, closing himself around Han’s shattered gasp and the moment when the rhythm broke.

Lightheaded euphoria drained away as he made the gradual, bewildered descent into a reality of clean angles and a world just waking with its grating jumble of light and noise. The silence that remained thrummed deep inside him. He kept his eyes closed, secluded in the sound of his own breathing. Still... amazed.

Distantly, he noticed Han shifting him to the side, away from the bunched and dampened sheet. Emptiness rose with familiar speed, and he barred it from mind the way he always had. A hand moved into his hair.

“You okay with this?” Han murmured.

“Yeah.” The word nestled into the side of Han’s neck, muffling the throaty sound of his voice. He was glad for the loose embrace, the casual, undemanding hold Han kept on him.

Disbelief took out every thought, and he left himself drift with the saturated warmth in his body. Didn’t want to think about it, just feel, as he slipped back into a half-state between awake and aware. Time and purpose floated by in a drowsy haze. Until Han stirred again.

“Time to get up, I guess...”

A hand on his chest stalled his reflexive motion. “You stay right where you are,” Han said. “You look like you could use some more sleep.”

Turning over, Luke blinked into the spill of sunlight that draped a bright band along Han’s shoulder, arm and hip. He knelt naked on the bed, relaxed, an impulse to move translating into the stretch of lean muscles.

“Where’re you going?” Luke asked with some delay. Every thought moved sluggishly through the pleasure that lingered like a fog.

“Got some business to take care of, over in the settlement.” Han offered a resigned shrug for apologies. He leaned forward, briefly covering the back of Luke’s hand with his palm, then swung sideways to fish for his clothes. “Might take all day. But Chewie should be back tonight... he’ll sure be glad to see you.”

“Me, too,” Luke said absently. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask about Chewbacca last night, nor their current commissions and dealings with the syndicate. Getting drunk on the present. For all he remembered, Han hadn’t volunteered any information either.

“Food’s in the kitchen. Plenty of it.” From the open door, Han tossed him a grin full of double meaning. “I’ll see you tonight.”

* * *

Hours later, Luke woke up out of dreamless sleep, noon splashing a bright river across the bed. Still crisply folded, a new sheet replaced the rumpled bedclothes beside him, evidence that lent the weight of truth to the pleasant warmth in his body. Luke rested his chin on folded arms. Part of him still wanted to lie here and move as little as possible, in the aftermath of a strange dream he could leave unconsidered. Another part just wanted to laugh out loud for joy.

When he commanded himself to a second shower, he discovered that Han had put his clothes through the cleaner. Half-dressed, Luke passed the small reflector Han probably used for shaving, and caught something unfamiliar on his face that would vanish again if he stopped for a scrutiny. He paused only once, inside the bedroom door, his attention wandering without focus. Spiderline cracks in the plaster, an unmade bed, the motes that swam in sunlight. A troubling knot in his belly, curled up with a sense of dislocation.

After that, he walked straight through the house and settled on the veranda, bare feet inches above the taut surface of the water. Memory pulled in his gut. Moved restlessly like a breath drawn from Han into himself, with the phantom pressure of a hand just below his ribcage. Perhaps he’d fallen asleep again in sheer defense, blocking himself to thoughts and questions. Time to let them come, he supposed.

And perhaps he should be surprised at himself — it wasn’t as if he’d been raised to see the potential lover in another man. But like all adolescents who lived out their private dramas in isolate homesteads, he’d thrived on the common outworld fare of wild rumors and exaggerated fantasies. Flustered and fascinated, when the older boys invented their awkward rituals of manhood and competition, always watching from the sidelines. Curious about the way they’d tested their bodies against each other, while private thrills seized him at random.

Sometimes all it took was watching the stars appear from layered darkness, or racing his ‘hopper through Beggar’s Canyon almost blind, or a sudden, keening note high up in the desert air. He’d slept in Biggs’s bed like a kid brother, and nothing much had prepared him for prejudice.

 _There’s no shame in taking your time_ , Aunt Beru had told him earnestly, a fond, embarrassed smile shaping slowly as she looked him up and down. Even then, he’d wondered if he’d ever grow out of the vague unrest that possessed him.

Han never had. Reluctant to commit to the Rebels’ cause, he’d prepared to raise ship daily, a loose satellite on the edges of their system. With Han, he’d felt an accord that steadied, then skipped a beat; Han’s easy, arrogant grace a disruptive force when he least expected it.

Luke glanced into the lagoon, where a shoal of thumb-sized fish traveled just beneath the surface, a nervous ripple within a greater current. Something twisted and turned at the back of his head, demanding resolution. He’d felt like a confused teenager again this morning — the way he’d responded with too much need, the way he’d longed to be touched. And the same intensity still sparked inside him, a live wire. Traces of a shock he didn’t want to examine. Not yet.

 _No need to analyze_ , Luke told himself. It had simply happened in the flush of their reunion, the combined forces of nostalgia and old affection rushing a sudden breach, and it wasn’t likely to happen again. This wouldn’t make a difference for their friendship.

His eyes still on the water, Luke unfastened his tunic, but when his fingers brushed bared skin, it brought back the feel of Han’s mouth and hands on him. He felt another twitch in his chest and wanted to hold it close, like a tightbeam slanting its different radiance across the past. He listened into the stillness of his body and recognized the impulse. No.

This morning had been a gift he wouldn’t question, a beautiful coincidence he’d accept for what it was. Meanwhile, he could channel some of the fretful unease into exercising.

 

Rainclouds had gathered in sullen clusters by the time Luke switched off his lightsaber and turned back inside. Only minutes later, a light drizzle began pattering against the glass doors, and the afternoon waned into banks of shifting, half-lit mists. His exercises had settled all the loose energy into habitual patterns; leashed, but not quelled. He’d wandered into the kitchen when a faint noise snared his attention. In the predictable rain, the growl of a lone engine rose above the steady rush.

By the time Luke reached the front door, Castor was strolling down the footpath, letting the rain run down his face with a bemused look. On the porch, he shook himself like a stray mutt.

“Han and Chewie should be around shortly,” he said by ways of greeting, smoothing wet hair back against his scalp. “They were just going to check out some malfunction aboard the Falcon, and I don’t really care for getting roped in as yardbird mechanic.”

“Not that you don’t fill the part pretty well,” Luke returned easily. “But I know what you mean.”

His visitor knuckled wetness out of his eyes. “Yeah, Han mentioned that he taught you all the tricks of the trade.”

“That’s what he likes to think.”

Castor gave an amused snort and tugged at his jacket’s collar, spilling more rainwater across his shirt.

“Why don’t you come inside?” Luke remembered to say. “I’ve just fixed some fresh tea.”

In the kitchen, he opened the window to liquefied, heavily scented air and went through Han’s random assortment of tableware for a second mug. The semi-automatic percolator exhaled puffs of steam with a feeble cough.

Both hands wrapped around the hot mug, Castor darted a glance at the lightsaber where it dangled from Luke’s belt. “And you’re a real Jedi knight...” He broke off with an incongruous, sheepish expression. “Hack it, listen to me! You must’ve had your quota of being gawked at. Han’s got some pretty impressive friends though, I’ll give him that.”

Luke offered a shrug for the artless apology. “So, how did you meet him?”

“Long story.” The other man scratched his chin and sipped thoughtfully on his tea as if sifting through several possible versions. “I ran out of luck. I’m a thief. One of the best in the business...” He held his hands out before him, flexing slim fingers. “’Cause I’ve always enjoyed the taking, not the having,” he continued. “That’s the only key to success. Simple. Greed’s a killer in that line of work.”

“Then what happened?” Luke asked, quietly amused by the man’s half-hearted attempt to camouflage his professional pride.

“Somebody must’ve ratted on me, and things got a little... messy.” Castor steepled his fingers, affecting a pious look. “Han happened to be in the vicinity and bailed me out. Turned out later that he’d been watching me all along. It’s that attitude got him involved with your rebellion, I guess.” He grinned with sly, crooked charm. “All the reason he ever gave me for his intervention was, he doesn’t like to see real talent go to waste.”

In all likelihood, that intervention had involved the notorious quick draw and some friendly crossfire with the local security, Luke supposed. Maybe he’d extricate the rest of the tale from Han sometime. “And that’s when you started working with him and Chewie?”

“Ground was getting a little too hot for me, and I figured I’d better keep a low profile for a while. Use my hands for something else.”

Faint melancholy drifted through Castor’s gaze as he fingered his mug. His hands moved with the lightly-boned elegance of birds, distracting Luke from the many questions he might have asked. But, honest to himself, there was no way he could interrogate Castor about the syndicate behind Han’s back. It was getting dark outside.

“And you’re planning to return to your own business sometime?”

“I’m not a trader.” The little man pulled up his shoulders inside the slowly drying jacket. “But then, it’s been fun working with Han and—” Interrupting himself, he snapped his fingers. “Here they come.”

Instead of an approaching craft, the scything sound of a sudden gale swept through the trees, the drone of engines trailing behind like an accidental echo. The plot of open ground before the porch was a sea of mud, final splinters of sunset swimming in the countless puddles.

Castor pulled a face at the Wookiee roar that shook the air. “He must really like you.”

Like the wild woodman of Corellian fable, Chewbacca came charging down the path, a huge, shaggy silhouette and a glint of bared fangs barreling from the shadows of trees. Muddy water whipped around Luke’s boots as he jogged towards the Wookiee.

After only a few steps, Chewbacca engulfed him in the kind of ebullient embrace that pulled him off the ground. Luke’s nostrils filled with the scent of wet Wookiee and a trace of engine oil, strangely like a forgotten smell of home.

“Hey, Chewie!” Laughter and preposterous sentiment thickened in his throat as he stumbled back a step. “Good to see you too. How’ve you been?”

Han had caught up meanwhile and watched the scene impassively, hands shoved into the pockets of his flight jacket. In the sinking light, his eyes gave nothing away. As if he’d fallen into a defensive pattern within himself.

“So, what’s for dinner?” he asked slowly, his eyes still on Luke.

“You tell us, cap!” Castor bantered right back. “You’re the host of this party.”

Unsure what he’d expected from this particular moment, Luke took a breath to readjust. Water-logged mud sucked at his boots as he walked back to the house, each sound entering the air together with his heartbeat like the firing of a bullet.

 

All four of them crowding into the kitchen, they fixed a hodgepodge kind of dinner from stocked provisions and fresh sago pike. Luke went about his assigned tasks with mechanical application, only half-listening to their exchange about the cargo Chewbacca had picked up on a trade outpost in the neighboring system. For all the rattling of pans and kitchenware, the pauses that severed the conversation carried the mark of underlying dissent. Something was wrong.

Later, when they retired to the lounge, Han selected a chair close to the veranda, while Chewbacca settled on the couch across the room. Taciturn, the large body ostensibly relaxed, though his deep-set eyes were riveted to a spot in the middle distance. As if he’d been caught in transit, forced to resign himself to indefinite delays.

Luke tried to dismiss the notion at once. Unthinkable, that anything at all could come between Han and his Wookiee partner.

Without giving it much thought, they’d all expected Chewbacca to follow Han into his chosen exile, any regrets he might have harbored overruled by the stronger demands of a life debt. Now, for the first time, Luke wondered if there’d been conditions attached. Or if doubts about Han’s choices had grown on Chewbacca the more they retrieved of their former independence.

While Han offered brief, infrequent comments, it was Castor who kept the conversation going as if by rote, helping himself to liberal quantities of Corellian malt that didn’t seem to affect him at all. When the bottle’s contents had dropped to a finger, he pushed from his chair.

“I’d better hit the track now ‘n try to contact Rycco. He’s overdue by a day.”

“Yeah, over-achievement’s no flaw of his,” Han agreed with mock-exasperation. “Let’s just hope the com station hasn’t gone off line again... The whole shebang’s been decrepit since the Clone Wars,” he added in Luke’s direction. “Running subspace transmissions only works half the time.”

“And the comnet might just buckle under the load of transmissions going out tonight,” Castor speculated. “Everybody’s flocking in for the parties tomorrow and sending out invitations. Never seen the place so busy before.” He grabbed his jacket and shrugged into it. “’Night, guys.”

“What happens tomorrow?” Luke asked as the front door closed with a scrape of dry wood against the floorboards.

“Solar eclipse. That type of thing always draws a crowd.” Han turned his glass over in his hand, perhaps contemplating the whereabouts of his missing associate.

“So this guy — Rycco — works for you as well?”

“Yeah, he’s just hauling a shipment of uncut korrin crystals back from the Corporate Sector.” Han directed a thoughtful glance at the emptied bottle on the table. “The second pilot we hired. Tends to get sidetracked every once in a while, but he can smell a good deal parsecs away. Great instincts.”

A derisive chortle from Chewbacca cut into that final statement.

Han’s jaw set hard. “Chewie here doesn’t much like the company I’m keepin’,” he explained, the Corellian drawl thickened by scathing sarcasm. He stopped further flak with a wave of the hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know you’re not objecting to Castor, thanks so much.”

Startled, Luke glanced from him to Chewie. He’d witnessed countless staring matches between them, occasionally exploding into yells and roars, but never anything like this tense discord.

Into the silence, Chewbacca rumbled a question he should have anticipated.

“That’s right,” Luke answered after a moment, striving for cool matter-of-factness. “Intell asked me to take the place of Rieekan’s usual courier, ‘cause they were hoping I could learn more about the source of all that information.”

“And then, what?” Han rose from his chair and strode to the table as if to clear away the bottle and Castor’s glass.

The subject had definitely come up at the worst of times. Willing his hands to unclench, Luke said, “I’m here to find out if you’re prepared to get involved any further...”

“And check out my loyalties, huh?” Han retorted edgily. With a sharp half-turn, he moved away from the table and stood by the glass doors, thumbs hooked behind his belt.

From the other side of the room, Chewbacca grumbled something ambiguous Luke couldn’t quite catch.

“So you’re the bait.” Han tossed the words over his shoulder and shook his head a mere moment later. “What I mean is, if Intell had any suspicions... if they guessed _I_ was behind those reports, it would’ve made sense to shove this assignment on you, you know.”

Luke swallowed, the taint of subterfuge and political gambles like an acrid taste in his mouth. As if everything personal served only a covert strategy to procure Han’s allegiance.

“I honestly don’t think they guessed anything,” he finally said.

“Well, maybe not.” Han rubbed the back of his neck, spine arching slightly into the motion.

A small ache curled up in Luke’s chest as he watched. Before he could say anything more, the comlink whistled loudly. Han thumbed it on without a word and for half a minute listened to the reedy whispers that filtered through.

“Yeah, sounds fishy to me too.” One hand rose to massage the spot between his eyebrows. “Guess we’d better drop by ‘n find out what this is all about.” Han cast a sidelong glance at Chewbacca. “Yep. See you in a few.”

“What’s happening?” Luke asked, irrational apprehension pressing up behind the question.

“Castor again. Looks like there’s some funny business behind Rycco’s delay this time.” Han clipped the comlink to his belt. “I’d better check up on things. You comin’, Chewie?”

On his way out, he paused by Luke’s chair to lay a hand on his shoulder. The same gesture of casual reassurance he’d offered the night before, but now its simplicity fractured into countless possible meanings.

“Go on, I’ll be fine here,” Luke said reflexively, before the gesture could turn into an apology.

“Okay.” Han stepped away to meet his eyes squarely. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

When they’d left, Luke listened into stillness, the soft creaks and rustles throughout the house, mapping the various pockets of silence.

In one of the rooms, he found an unused cot, placed against the chance collage of paint flaking in layers off the wall. He went to fetch a blanket for himself, unable to presume on the intimacy of Han’s bed.

Stretched out on his back, he watched islands of ragged paint sail out of darkness, completely motionless. His body like the surface of the sea under a storm’s caress, while the air lay quietly against him.

* * *

Two hours after dawn, the temperatures were already soaring towards another pitch of unrelieved heat. From the direction of the front door, muted clanking sounds reached Luke as he got up and dressed.

He found Han outside, bent over the antigrav coil of a bobbing glider. One gloved hand picking through supply lines while the other swiped at a trickle of sweat down his jaw and left a dark smear just below the cheekbone. Set off by the white glare, the sight of him was achingly familiar.

“Good morning,” Luke offered belatedly.

“Hey.” Straightening, Han slammed the hood back down and suppressed a yawn.

“Late night?”

Han shrugged eloquently. “You didn’t have to move to a different room, you know.”

“I know.” But he wasn’t sure what exactly he’d just acknowledged. Luke descended the porch steps for a closer look at the glider. Fine, metallic heat sliding under his fingertips when he touched the scratched bodywork. “Planning to go anywhere?”

“Well, how’d you like watching the eclipse from the sea?” Han asked. “It’s not far. You could see the coast from here, ‘xcept for the trees.”

“Sounds good.”

Han’s expression warmed to a lopsided smile. “We can make a start right after breakfast. Still got time. The big spectacle’s supposed to happen around noon.”

 

Half an hour later, the glider rose above the canopy of trees, but there was no breeze to enforce the headwind. A thin band of clouds reclined over the horizon, the rest of the sky a threadbare, heat-bleached azure.

Luke leaned back in his seat and tasted a hint of salt on the air. “Did you manage to get in touch with Rycco?”

Han shook his head. “Castor ran into an ammo peddler who’d just returned from Nam Korlis and swears he saw Rycco there. And he’s not the type to get sloshed ‘til he takes a rancor for his mother.”

“Rycco wasn’t supposed to stop over on that world?”

“It’s several parsecs off the route he should’ve taken. Crowded little world, but it’s kind of a trade center for the entire sector.”

When Han swooped the glider over a forested ridge, the vista opened onto a distant horizon, miles of deep blue water leaching color from the sky.

“You think he might have detoured for some dealing on the side?” Luke asked.

“Possible. But he’s got no reason to be uptight about it. I always told him he’s free to jump opportunities as they come up... so long’s he sticks to our schedule.”

“Maybe there’s a com malfunction at their end as well.”

“I doubt it. A couple hours without subspace communications, and all the business’d crumble.” Han reached for the altitude lever again and slowed speed simultaneously. “I _hope_ he just got carried away by some juicy deal...”

Across a ribbon of dazzling white sand, the glider descended towards the waterfront. Han let the vehicle float some meters above the ocean as they headed away from the coast. On the other side of the bay’s expanse danced the steely glitters of several hoverbarges and merged with the whitecaps as the distance between them grew.

Luke filled his lungs with the tart saline smells. The last cycle of day and night had pushed him through a wild swerve of conflicting sentiments, but with the stark isolation of the open sea, he felt some inner balance return. Settling at the sight of an empty, clear-cut horizon.

“About my assignment...” he started. A stronger wind had lifted out of the east, eating the words from his mouth.

“Wait.” Han’s thumb pressed down on the canopy controls, and the phototropic screen extended into a hemispherical shield. Viewed through polarized clearsteel, the seascape stretched before them in dusky shades of mauve and green.

“I accepted this assignment because there was no alternative,” Luke began again, turning his face to look at Han. “Intell need more information about the syndicate, and their resources are limited.”

“Same old story.” Han cut propulsion, letting the glider hover soundlessly on its antigrav cradle.

“They were hoping you could be persuaded to work for them.” Luke paused, considering his next words. “That’s why they asked me to replace the courier and provide something like a... personality profile.”

“Professional paranoiacs that they are.” Han snorted. “Yeah, I’d thought they might come barging in someday, dangling their idea of a lucrative offer in front of my nose. If it hadn’t been you, they sure would’ve had a hard time locating me.” Arms folded, he settled into a more comfortable position, his eyes shifting towards Luke for the first time since they’d started this conversation. “Look, I’m sorry for snapping at you last night. It’s not what you think...”

“Then what is it?” Luke asked, uncertain what he was supposed to be thinking.

Han threw up a hand in vague frustration. “It just brought back a whole lot of things that made me want to leave that outfit in the first place. Like the way they’re using people and wearing them out, all in the name of some high-flown ideal that’s been rotting away from inside since—” He cut himself off with a shake of the head. “Honestly, Luke, you gonna tell me you would’ve picked this assignment if you’d had a real choice? Snooping ‘round to peg some stranger’s moral integrity, that’s not like you.”

In all sobriety, Luke couldn’t deny that this was exactly what he’d been asked to do. Yet the bald statement of trust outweighed past disappointments with incredible ease.

“Unless you had some kinda Jedi hunch about me,” Han added on a lighter note.

“Believe me, I had _no_ idea.”

A grin broke free of Han’s lingering reserve. “Well, hell, I guess my jaw must’ve hit the deck when I saw you. Could’ve knocked me over then and there.”

“All things considered, you kept it together pretty well,” Luke offered, deadpan.

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in.” Han cuffed him playfully. “But you should’ve seen yourself, junior. Can’t remember catching that kinda look on your face since you were sixteen, the day we met in that grotty cantina.”

“I was near nineteen,” Luke corrected automatically and knew from the low chuckle that he’d just been had. “You recall that much?” he rejoined, feigning surprise. “Not bad for a guy your age.”

Both hands raised in surrender, Han let his head fall back against the side of the canopy with a silent laugh. Slouched in his seat, eyes glinting with amusement beneath the fall of wind-tousled hair, he was the image of his younger self.

Luke smiled at him, grateful and almost relieved. With the slide back into easy banter, a familiar levity spread inside him. But more kindled alongside, a fine thread of expectation skirting every thought. Not too sure how much longer he could look at Han and pretend that nothing had changed, he glanced out across the water.

The vibrant mosaic of blue, aquamarine and frothy white had darkened almost imperceptibly. In the distance, a flock of birds circled with slow grace, sunlight reflecting off their pale wings.

“It’s starting,” Han commented, tilting his head for a glance at the sky.

But even through the dimmed canopy, the primary still flared furious incandescence, its limb barely visible in the bright haze. Only when he looked hard did Luke detect the hint of a shadowed disk, beginning its migration across the sun. Time, he reminded himself. He couldn’t put off all those questions indefinitely.

“How did you get involved with the syndicate?” he asked, braced for anything from renewed stone-walling to a flip reply, but all Han said was, “Simple.” From the laconic inflection, he’d seen the question coming a long way off.

“They hired me for a couple of cargo runs,” Han went on, “soon after I’d set up shop in this area. ‘Course, at the time I knew next to nothing about these guys.”

“And then you found out they’re more dangerous than you thought?”

“Well, it’s not like they’re gearing up to establish a new galactic order,” Han countered with defensive irony. “The way I see it, all they want is the right key players in their pockets, so they can control the entire market in the Outer Rim.”

It hadn’t been intended as reassurance and only confirmed Intell’s suspicions. “If the Alliance doesn’t do anything about it,” Luke said, “the Sullustians are going to act on their own. They’re ready to pull off the better part of their fleet. We’ll have another war on our hands.”

“And Intell think I can help ‘em stop that from happening.” When their eyes met again, Han raised a mocking eyebrow. “They gotta be real desperate.”

“What if they are?” Luke asked back.

All the nonchalance vanished abruptly. A muscle slanted in Han’s jaw as he caught back some rash retort. “Say I started working for the syndicate on a permanent basis, you think they’d just let me quit again? And if something goes wrong... Either way, chances are I’ll lose everything I’ve got here.”

The plain statement of fact sparked a quick frost in the pit of Luke’s stomach, escaping the constraints of rational consideration and duty.

“I’m not asking you to do it,” he said softly.

He leaned forward, arms folded across the dashboard. A strange twilight suffused sea and sky as the moonshadow gained in density. There was now a distinct chill in the air, and the birds had disappeared.

“Wouldn’t blame you for asking,” Han said gruffly.

A brief touch on his upper arm brought Luke’s eyes back to him, to the deadlock of chagrin and disquiet in his expression.

“You know, what gets me is the way the government’s treating you,” Han continued. “Like you’re their prime propaganda weapon and their gofer whenever they run out of options.”

“That’s more or less how things worked in the Old Republic,” Luke argued out of habit.

“Except that they had thousands of Jedi to send on diplomatic errands and what not.” Han spread his hands. “It’s your choice. I’m just thinkin’ that it’s time for you to be doing your own thing.”

Another gust of wind snaked past the canopy and touched the side of Luke’s face. “Leia would disagree with you.”

“Sure,” Han conceded with a shrug. “But no matter how much she cares about you, Leia’s not the person to ask for advice about this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but...” He finished with a wave of one hand that could mean anything.

“No, her priorities aren’t the same as mine,” Luke agreed soberly. It always came back to the fact that no one alive shared his priorities, not even those who publicly painted out brilliant visions of the Jedi order-to-be. “And with so many emergencies on our hands, I never really had the time to make any far-reaching plans.”

“Then maybe you should take the time now,” Han said bluntly. “And stop running.”

Instinctively, Luke wanted to protest, but the words brought him up short against his own evasions. Pushing himself hard had been one of them.

“Luke...” Han started again when he didn’t reply. “You know me, I’ve never been good at putting things the diplomatic way. I’m just saying what it looks like to me.”

“I wouldn’t want anything else,” Luke returned. “But my responsibility—”

“We’re talking about your personal needs ‘n wants here,” Han insisted. “It’s your life.”

“Not really. It’s like — I can own just a part of it, and that’s okay...” Luke trailed off, acceptance at odds with a residue of fretful questions. Which part? And how?

 _You will know_ , he quoted Yoda’s advice to himself. _When you are at peace_.

The sun had dwindled to a thin white crescent, and the wind held its breath as the fiery photosphere disappeared with a diamond glitter. Below the glider, the water rolled in deep, lucent green, a basin of drowned light.

When Luke stretched his senses, he felt subtle patterns of energy pull into a swirl that slowed and froze beneath the boundless shadow. But Han’s presence beside him altered his focus, bent and drew the mental probe with unfamiliar force, irresistible like a gravity well —

Until another image superimposed itself. The Corellian fresco, a dark smudge obscuring the center of a fierce star. A cool sliver of premonition twisted in a recess of Luke’s mind.

Gut reaction, he labeled it for himself. Through the Force, he could sense the disturbance felt by all living creatures as a vast stillness descended.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said at length. “No satellite could possibly blot out a binary star.”

“And since the Imperials tethered up Corellia’s moon, you won’t see any eclipse there either.” Han moved again with a soft rustle of clothes. Restless, as if he could shake off the strangeness, let it slide weightlessly off his shoulders. His next question took Luke by surprise.

“What’s it feel like?” A hint of flustered uncertainty laced Han’s tone. “The Force, I mean.”

Through startlement, Luke fumbled for ways to translate what he’d never put into words. When he glanced sideways, the corona’s pearly light played through the canopy and searched Han’s features. Temperatures had dropped noticeably, but a different kind of heat gathered just beneath his skin.

“It’s alive,” Luke said. “It’s motion, change... raw energy without form, but you can breathe it, taste it, be a part of it. There’s no limit.” He looked out across the sea and shook his head, quite sure that none of this answered Han’s question. He could feel Han’s eyes on him — and something else that wound through their conversation like a shadow river. “Why d’you ask? You used to call it... ‘nothing but simple tricks and nonsense’.”

Han gave a small, self-mocking grin at that, a hint of actual embarrassment close behind. “It changed you. That’s what makes it real enough, I guess.”

“I don’t know if that was the Force itself.” Luke bowed his head, chin resting on his fist. “It made me more aware of many things, but sometimes I think it’s the way I’ve been directed, used for the greater purpose... Maybe that’s what makes it hard to draw only on the Force for guidance.”

Above, the corona faded beneath the first white flash on the other side of the sun. A heartbeat later, he felt Han’s hand against the nape of his neck, the simple affection in that touch.

“If it’s this infinite energy field, it can’t be moving in a single direction.”

“It doesn’t,” Luke agreed. “Which leaves me with the things I know and can learn by myself.” The sunlight had almost regained its full, searing force, the renewed blast of heat chasing a chill down his back.

“Like the rest of us,” Han said, deliberately lightening the mood. He reached for the glider’s ignition, then stopped again. “Listen, an acquaintance of mine’s throwing a party in the settlement tonight. He runs the biggest operation round here, and we do business sometimes. Anyway — wanna come?”

When their eyes met, Luke recognized the subtle build-up of tension in himself, something Han’s low-lidded look seemed to reflect back at him. Unless some crazy, wishful impulse had skewed his perceptions. The glider thrummed on standby, powering up for the ride.

“Sure,” he heard himself answer in perfectly level tones, the better part of his mind engaged elsewhere.

His glance skated to the dapples of perspiration gleaming at the base of Han’s throat, the deep tan framed by his open shirt. Every line of Han’s body stirring up the resonance of touch within him, memory counterpoised in his own flesh. The salty air tasted of beginnings and coincidence and aimless energy.

“Great.” Han headed the glider inland and kicked for speed simultaneously.

The swerving start pushed Luke back in his seat and knocked a quick breath from his lungs. When he looked back at the sky, a frosty halo surrounded the sun, like a portent of change in the weather.

* * *

The noise of countless sprees blossomed all over the settlement, joining the glottal music that rolled from the bars into a violet, cloudless dusk. From the glider’s back seat, Artoo whistled.

“Yeah, I knew you’d get bored doing nothing besides grooming the navicomputer,” Luke returned.

“Watch what you say.” Grinning, Han swung the craft through a narrow turn. “With Wookiees, grooming’s several steps into serious courtship.”

At their backs, the droid blatted indignation.

“So is Chewie going to come?” Luke asked.

“Maybe later. He was still busy testing the new converter when I called.” Han’s tone was flat and unrevealing, the runlights of other vehicles riddling his expression.

Inside another minute, he’d parked the glider by the gates to a lakeside estate. A lanky droid admitted them, its body burnished by the mingled luster of glowlanterns and torches.

Despite the early hour, the party seemed to be reaching full swing. Crowds moved everywhere in the patches of fuzzy light, the drone of conversations overlaying synchord tunes that whispered in the background. Droids hurried back and forth between the tables distributed among the trees. At the back of the estate, a villa sprawled in lavish illumination. With its clearsteel dome and a landing pad atop its outflung wing, it left no doubt about the proprietor’s wealth.

“Hey, Solo!” From one of the blurry islands of light and noise, a tall woman strode towards them. A slitted, form-fitting dress exposed flashes of pale skin as she moved, a mass of auburn hair trailing in artful disarray from a silver head dress.

“Jiffra Kemál,” Han introduced and gestured towards Luke with minimal hesitation. “I’ve brought a friend. He just came over from Tatooine.”

“Terrible climate. He’ll love it here." The woman accorded Luke a dazzling, completely disinterested smile before she slid an arm around Han’s waist and molded herself to his side. “It’s been a long time...”

Bewildered by the small pang in his chest, Luke resisted a sudden impulse to look away. Of course there would’ve been lovers in the seven months since Han had left, and just because he lived alone —

“Still got a lot of work to do on the house, whenever I can spare the time.” Han made no move to disengage. “I’ll invite you over when it’s all done.”

“Show a little more enthusiasm, and I might swing by much sooner.” She released him with a saucy grin. “Meanwhile, make sure you don’t turn into a hermit out there.”

With half a glance for Luke, she stalked away to greet another pair of newcomers.

Han sent a quirky grin after her. “Jiffy’s got more brains than she lets on. She’s Dayton’s manager and handles most business contacts for him.”

Two steps behind them, Artoo had struck up a conversation with a rotund server droid.

“Don’t see the main man anywhere,” Han added as they walked on. “But he’s kind of a private guy.”

“All the same, he seems to be very popular,” Luke said, indicating the restive congregation.

Although a Wrendair’s feathercrest bobbed gracefully above the fray and a group of diminutive Qwahiri bivouacked on the lawn nearby, most guests seemed to be humanoid.

“Yeah, the way serious credits can make anyone popular.” Han pivoted half a step to snatch two glasses off a server’s antigrav tray. “See? Imported Sullustian champagne. Only the best of everything.”

Luke drank without quite noticing the taste. Fragmented music, voices and the warmth of bodies swirled around him, caught beneath the cooling night air.

“Look what the wind’s blown in...” Glass raised in salute, Castor stepped from abundant shadow. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I said I didn’t know,” Han qualified. “Can’t hurt to show my face to the community every once in a bit.”

“And warm up the legend,” Castor returned dryly, inching a little closer to Han’s side. “Still no news...” He lowered his voice. “I put a call through to Nam Korlis. There’s a guy in Security Central who owes me, and I thought I’d collect the favor.”

“You think he can turn up some info about our missing friend?” Han asked, equally quiet. “He’s probably long gone.”

“Worth a try.” Castor pulled up his shoulders and tossed off the rest of his drink. “Besides—”

He broke off at a hollered greeting from the side. Trailed by a stooping Ithorian, two broad-shouldered men joined up, their brown faces craggy and lined enough to pass as Weequays.

“Why, you old spacers...” Han concentrated on balancing his glass as a meaty palm descended on his shoulder.

“What’s that fizz you’re drinkin’, Solo?” the taller of the two barked cheerfully. “Can’t stomach the good stuff anymore?”

“I’m working up to it,” Han summoned his best insolent drawl. “And who told you that a potholed liver’s the mark of success, huh?”

Luke returned a nod for each introduction that followed and let their incurious glances move over him. He felt the small amount of alcohol enter his bloodstream, the slide of his shirt against his chest when he lifted the glass again, and the dampness of sweat gathering at his temple. Too aware of his body in ways that owed nothing at all to a Jedi’s enhanced perceptions.

He’d borrowed one of Han’s shirts — blue and starting to fade a little — since his own tunic was unsuited for the tropical climate. _Color goes well with your eyes_ , Han had commented from the doorstep, unsettling him once again with nothing but that careless remark.

Now, as he listened to several rounds of practiced repartee and friendly insults, his imagination projected the scene back across the years. From the concert of quips and laughter emerged a sketch of Han’s free-wheeling smuggler’s life before they’d met, while he watched, a visitor out of time. Luke set his drained glass down on another server’s circular top. It was then that he noticed Artoo’s absence.

Detaching from the group, Luke scanned their surroundings for the droid’s bright body paint and found no sign of him. No cause for alarm, really, but Artoo’s addiction to interfacing with every available network had fried his circuits on occasion.

As he started off through the cross-currents of guests and droids, Luke drew the Force closer around him. In the half-lit garden, the chances of being recognized approached zero — assuming anyone bothered to look. But if Han decided to play along with Intell’s game plan, he’d better not be seen socializing with an Alliance representative.

If. The word chafed against spiking regret. Irrationally, Luke wished Han would refuse. As if Han’s independence had worked as a charm that kept his own doubts at bay.

He passed the villa’s main entrance, rounding a pageant of elegant silks and plaited taffeta, when a pale shimmer caught his eye. Distant light strafed Artoo’s squat form as he trundled up through a curtain of vines and hanging branches.

Luke met the droid halfway, at a distance from the nomadic crowds. “Where’ve you been?” he asked, mildly exasperated. “Made some interesting new friends?”

Artoo gave a soft, drawn-out whistle modulating from confusion to excitement.

“What do you mean, strange?” Sometimes Luke wondered if Artoo had been overexposed to the ever-popular holonovelas that featured droids in the roles of untiring investigators and ingenious spies. “Look,” he added, “even if there’s something going on behind the scenes, I don’t think it’s any of our business...”

A red light glared protest at him as Artoo bleeped insistently. A human in his place would have dug his heels in.

“All right,” Luke relented, “let’s take a look.”

Performing a full turn on hind wheels, the droid urged him towards the property’s less populated area, where the building extended another wing into the close darkness of trees. Almost soundlessly, Artoo proceeded past a small service entrance. Through a set of ventilation filters above the door escaped rich odors that indicated a kitchen. Around the corner, a small window threw a bright trapezoid across the ground. Edging closer, Luke glanced inside.

The room was furnished with the gleaming vanguard of culinary implements, a steel phalanx of electronic stoves, dehydrators, moisturizers and pressure cookers lining the walls. All the work surfaces were littered with edibles and half-prepared meals, and from the cooking island rose intermittent billows of steam. But the four men within hardly qualified as kitchen staff.

One of them stood with his back turned to the window, dark hair shorn close to the skull. Across his shoulder, Luke could see a bearded giant in an expensively tailored green suit. Fluorescent glowtubes turned his hair a dull copper, picked out the lines around his taut mouth. A thin streak traversed his jaw that could’ve been dried blood from a cut. At the back of the kitchen, two men in jumpsuits flanked a wooden door, heavy repeat blasters balanced at their hips, yet clearly trained on the smoky green suit.

Whatever confrontation had just culminated came to its end when the big man’s shoulders slumped and his visitor slapped a short titanium tube into an outstretched hand. Grim and defeated, the red-haired man turned with a gesture of dismissal. The goons by the door snapped to attention at once, guns lowering as they left their post.

“Artoo,” Luke whispered. “Get out of sight. Now.”

While the droid wheeled hastily towards a thicket of blue-leaved shrubs, Luke flattened himself against the wall and mustered composure with one deep breath. He was a shadow, an extension of the patterned dimness between the building and the trees. Rendered invisible by skills he’d first explored and tested when he’d returned to Tatooine, scouting possible routes into Jabba’s fortress.

The back door opened an instant later and released the three visitors. With the silent circumspection of assassins, they filed towards the concealment of night. Scarlet diodes glittered from the codelocked case one of them carried, cuffed to his wrist.

Luke waited for a minute and another. Then the clear whine of an engine’s kick-start penetrated the diffuse background noise. With a signal for Artoo, he headed back towards the main entrance, considering what he’d just witnessed. The settling of a debt, or a blackmail racket? Some unexpected dislocation in the precarious tectonics between procurer and client? Unless this sector’s denizens always conducted business in the crosshairs, and the party served only as an elaborate camouflage for a private transaction...

“I don’t know who they are,” he answered a clucked question from Artoo. “But you’re right, they didn’t look like friendlies.”

Maybe Han would have an explanation or at least an instructive theory available.

On a terrace by the lake shore, long tables and benches had been set up. As he walked past a congregation of rugged-looking spacers in their gala threads, Luke located Han near the end of one table. Next to him, the Weequay-lookalikes were discussing the current trends of business and fortune, pitching opinions back and forth across a battlefield of platters, dishes and glasses. Predictably, only Han noticed his presence and waved Luke to his side.

“I’ve been looking for you...” A sharp, questioning look pronounced the unspoken rest. _Something wrong?_

Luke shook his head once as he sat down. “Just checked up on Artoo.”

“Well, next time let me know before you pull another disappearance trick.” Han shoved his plate in Luke’s direction. “Want some? The food’s great, but I guess I piled on more than I can handle.”

“Where’s Castor?” Luke asked, surveying the wild combination of seafoods, sautéed roots and legumes between delicacies he couldn’t identify.

“Either got bored, or found himself more entertaining company. I haven’t seen him in a while.” Han leaned forward to reach for an unused glass, and his hand brushed lightly against Luke’s wrist. “Wine or water?”

When Luke looked up, Han studied him across the shortened distance, the flicker of a glowlantern dancing in his eyes.

“Wine,” Luke answered with fractional delay.

As he began to eat, the debate veered towards miscellaneous gripes. Some of the pilots and traffickers lamented the Empire’s fall and the removal of numerous trade restrictions that’d kept the smuggling business in full bloom over decades.

“There’s always hopin’ that newfangled Republic’s gonna fill the bill, once they get their act together,” said a voice several places down the table.

“Not in your life,” one of the Weequays retorted, prompting a brief burst of laughter and grunts. “Mark my words, they’ll soon be chokin’ on the kindness of their bleedin’ hearts.”

“They’re gonna turn us all legal as shit, like it or not,” someone else groused. “But what’s worse is them heavyweight outfits nailing all the peachy deals. That’ll be the end of us independents.”

“Get on their payroll, or go belly up, what else can you do?” a bald Tenuvian joined. “The ticket to survival is work as a contractor these days, what with the way they’re puttin’ the screws on us—”

“Keep talkin’ like that, and freelance spacin’s history,” a raspy voice said from across the table, the harsh brogue laced with calm humor. Luke raised a glance from his plate.

“They can’t buy you,” the man continued, “but start shitting in your pants like you do, and you’re shrinking to the size that’ll fit their scheme. Nice job.” Two braids held the gray hair back from his lean face, tightening the brown skin at his temples. “Ain’t that right, Solo?”

“You said it.” Han returned a broad grin. “That’s Samiel Harad,” he added under his breath. “Living spacer legend. He’s been in the business since before the Empire.”

Against his side, Luke felt the warmth of Han’s body gather strength like a distant signal, repeating itself between shirt fabric and skin.

“Everybody’s gotta make a livin’,” another voice complained, full of guttural vowels and resignation. “Can’t beat the system, you know that.”

“The system!” Harad let out a noisy breath. “Ain’t no such thing. Don’t be sold on such nonsense, and they’ll bag you. We’ve survived this long ‘cause we ain’t playin’ by their rules.”

Mutters rose around the table, divided between sarcasm and nostalgic regret, only to falter again in another moment.

“Here comes our host,” Han remarked.

Luke summoned attention to draw up the concealing weave of Force energy. Without a stirring of surprise, he recognized the man who approached the table, broadcasting a jovial smile. Torch light gleamed on the copper hair, but the dark smear had been wiped off Dayton’s face together with the look of angry defeat. Beside him, Jiffra’s purple dress glistened like a sultry invitation.

“Enjoying yourselves, gents?” Dayton received the multilingual round of acclamation with a short, ironic bow.

As he strolled further down the table, Jiffra trailed a hand over Harad’s shoulder. “Rallying the troops again?” she asked. “You’re a hopeless optimist, you know that?”

“It’s in the genes, sweetheart. Ain’t no cure for it.” The old man craned his neck with an appreciative grin up the length of her elegant frame. “Have a drink with me?”

“I’d love to.” Whistles went up when she climbed across the bench and the tight dress slid up over her thighs. “But you’ve never been one to oppose change,” she said, tossing her hair out of her face. “Why now?”

“There’s change, and then there’s change...” Han murmured and let his arm fall across the back of the bench, the brief stir of air currents moving across Luke’s shoulder blades. “Harad’s got a point about all the rampant paranoia.”

Across the table, Jiffra poured wine from a crystal decanter. “Now tell me, what’s so bad about working for someone else and sharing the profit?”

“Oh, some thrive on it,” Harad agreed. “Like you do, honey. And others just wither away.”

“You don’t strike me as such a fragile flower,” she answered with a soft laugh like an afterthought.

Something in her tone or her posture belonged to a different setting, a different conversation. The notion skittered from reach even as Luke tried to capture it for scrutiny. His sidelong glance caught on Han’s fingers where they played absently with the stem of his glass, twirling and tipping it. Refracted shards of brightness like thoughts taking off in several directions at once. Luke turned his head at the faint heat that crawled up his face.

Less than five meters separated them from the waterline, and he looked out across the lake where sail barges floated leisurely, wreathed in garlands of light. Spinning mirror patterns on the water’s surface. He breathed sharply of the lush night air.

“What’s on your mind?” Han asked, his voice closer than Luke would have expected.

He pulled up his shoulders as if to relax the strange tightness in his chest. “Nothing special.”

“Try again.”

Luke shook his head. “It’s just—”

“Just what?”

He felt the tantalizing warmth of Han’s breath against the side of his neck. Unsteady lights throbbed out of rhythm over the water.

“I want to be alone with you,” he said before the thought had formed.

“We can leave anytime.”

When he leaned back, Han’s arm came around his shoulders, and the swirl of sensations settled into clear focus.

 _I didn’t know_ , he wanted to say. _I didn’t know it could be so easy_. A slight breathlessness dragged at him, and easy wasn’t the word. Not for the strangeness that swept him with blind relief, the rush of anticipation when he met Han’s eyes. But for a moment all the things he knew about Han and the things he’d never known about himself held each other in a weightless, effortless balance.

“Then let’s go,” he said.

 

After the noise of the party, the silence acquired a substance that carried like water. Luke walked towards the glider, listening to the resolute cadence of Han’s steps across gravel and sand, the whirr of Artoo’s servos trailing somewhere behind them. His own footfalls entering somebody else’s fantasy.

“I’ll drive,” he offered. The distance ahead of them thinned out like a racetrack to infinity, and he needed something to keep his hands occupied.

“Whatever you say, but I didn’t drink that much.” Han vaulted over the side as if to prove his point.

Lowering the vehicle so that Artoo could hoist himself into the backseat, Luke limited his mind to the controls before him.

As the glider curved towards the lake shore, jumbled music surged and ebbed, then fell away abruptly. On his left, festooned sail barges drifted into darkness, a reflection of the sparks igniting in his stomach. A soft chitter from Artoo returned him to the margins of reason, to scattered suspicions that had coalesced all evening.

 _What am I doing? We need to talk_. Confounded by his own abstraction, Luke cleared his throat.

“Is it possible,” he started, his own voice returning to him across a gap of miles, “that Dayton’s doing business with a bigger organization?”

“What makes you think that?” The stark note of surprise in Han’s voice implied more than one reason.

“Something I saw tonight,” Luke answered. “Actually, it was Artoo who noticed...”

When he’d finished his brief account, the glider skimmed the lake’s narrow arm, a polished wedge striking out into miles of lightless jungle.

“Sounds like forced cooperation, if it wasn’t outright blackmail,” Han said. “But a guy like Dayton doesn’t bend, unless he’s outbid and outgunned.”

“Then it would have to be the syndicate.”

“They’re using every trick in the book to pressure independent traders into working for them.” Han leaned back in his seat. “Well, you heard the guys talk tonight. I guess I hoped Dayton would hold up longer than the rest. Damn.”

“We don’t know anything for sure,” Luke said reflexively. He’d broken the mood, and maybe that was why he’d brought it up, maybe he was reaching for an excuse to curb the want that rose inside him. “It could have been a one-time transaction.”

“Yeah, but even if it is... Guess I’d better make some inquiries.”

Luke nodded, realigned his thoughts, but his breathing hadn’t calmed.

“Luke...” Something in Han’s tone made a question of his name, and he turned his head.

Han gave him a long, level look. “How long’re you going to stay?”

“Until I have some answers.” The words came too fast and betrayed longings that had slipped, unnoticed, past his defenses.

“Yeah, but do you know what the question is?”

Han’s lowered voice suggested everything he hadn’t said. Luke’s mouth went dry. “Maybe not.”

His mind took off in jumbled flight. Adrift between the black surface of water and moonless night, enveloped in the glider’s drone and the troubling pleasure that thrummed in his body. From the corner of his eye, he saw Han move.

A hand touched his thigh just above the knee and rested there, without pressure or demand, but the jolt of galvanic tension traveled all the way through him. Became static, became comprehensive, until his awareness circled only one irresistible need. Only the parched, hungry waiting inside him. Something he couldn’t command or deny.

 

Neither of them reached for the lighting controls when they entered the house. And it wasn’t the darkness that enfolded him with lightheaded, disorienting force. Luke paused, hands clenched at his sides, only a short step separating him from Han, and the dark heightened the sound of his breathing. Only for a moment. Then his arms caught around Han’s waist, and strong hands cupped his face with unexpected gentleness.

“You’ve always had a way of getting under my guard,” Han murmured.

Expectation snapped inside him when their mouths met. On a rush of breath and heedless excitement, Luke explored Han’s mouth with his own, lips parting into thoughtless yearning until a sweet tension sang in every nerve. Still so new, so shockingly raw it took his breath away. A furious heartbeat climbed into his throat, and he didn’t realize they’d moved until his shoulders made contact with the wall that steadied him, the cool, unyielding surface like a focal point for the restless swirl of sensation.

The plunging depth of a stormy kiss, a rustle like silk tingling where Han’s fingers crushed the shirt’s worn fabric as if to rip through to bare skin. Han’s thigh between his legs, and his pants growing tighter around his rising erection. Quick gasps interrupting the quiet, between one kiss and the next. Luke sucked in a deep breath as if preparing for a dive into some uncharted ocean, tasting Han, the full length of his body plastered against him. A faster thrill burst through him when Han caught hold of his hips, and his body jerked forward to answer the pressure with demands of his own.

Luke groaned, his head falling back, his eyes open to the dark that was spinning, pulling him along towards instant, mindless release. Han’s mouth fastened on his throat, starting another flare of heat that leapt into his groin and hardened him more. Every muscle along his spine drew tight as he pushed back against Han to ease the unbearable pressure until he was almost lost to the rhythm, almost coming —

One hand found a hold on Han’s shoulder.

“Stop,” he gasped, “Han, we... I can’t stand this a moment longer.”

The hard grip on his hips eased at once. He felt the brush of cool air moving in between them, then fingers caressed his face, touched his lips and followed their outline slowly as if tracing a single thought.

“Didn’t mean to get carried away,” Han said huskily, but there was little of apology in his voice.

“I want to touch you. I want—” Luke slid his fingers to the neck of Han’s shirt, dipping beneath the fabric to claim a spot of heated skin beneath the collarbone. The bedroom was only down the corridor, only a minute from here, if he could make himself move. He shook himself loose with a winded laugh and linked his fingers through Han’s. “Come on.”

In the bedroom, Han stepped up behind him, reaching around to undo the fasteners of his shirt and slide it off his shoulders. Luke stood motionless in the security of that small circle, watching the hands that unbuckled his belt and pushed his pants down his hips. The shadow movement of Han’s fingers in the lucid gray twilight, darker skin with its knowledge of the sun pressed against the pale ridges of muscle over his stomach. One hand diving under his waistband to trace his hipbone, down and around, probing lightly beneath the heat that seemed to come off his body in waves. Luke bit down on his lip and turned before he could lose the impulse to move again.

When he sat down on the bed to take off his boots, Han yanked his own shirt over his head.

“No, let me undress you.”

He pulled Han down beside him, flat on his back. A glint of amusement flashed through the hazel eyes and darkened into fierce, unreadable impulse. Luke felt his stomach clench in response. A possessive gaze took in his nakedness, swept over him and raised heat on his skin while he removed the rest of Han’s clothes.

 _You don’t even have to touch me_ , the thought shaped slowly across a dazzled distance, and his hands made their path back up across muscular calves, the bony protrusion of kneecaps, across the fine dark hair on Han’s thighs. _I can feel it. The way you want me_.

Two days ago, he’d done little more than react, amazement turning every ounce of awareness in on itself. This time, he explored with a fevered concentration, poised over the long body like unknown territory, always bordering on the most private regions of his mind.

For years, he’d been familiar with Han’s body in a casual fashion, the thin old scars on his lower chest, the sparse economy of movement. He’d relied on Han’s strength and speed of reflex, the pattern of Han’s reactions under fire until they’d reached the point where they could fight back to back and visualize each other’s moves through some intangible radar. But he’d never known the taste of Han’s skin. Never this.

Now his hands brought every line out of the dimness with a belief in small revelations, a twitch of tendon, the way a muscle tightened into a clean ridge down the length of Han’s thigh. It was another way of taking down his own defenses, but the knowledge formed only in the margins of awareness while his touch stripped away control to replace it with pleasure. Charting quivers of half-checked responses as one hand skated across the flat belly and the other slid up between Han’s legs. The rough catching of breath when he skimmed lightly over Han’s erection, focused on pulse and incredibly soft skin more than solid substance.

A savage heartbeat kicked Luke’s sternum as Han bucked into his touch with a soft curse that trailed off into gasps. Already wide open, his senses registered every stir and erratic breath with seismic precision, the mounting tension that resonated between them, and he moved with the pleasure that ranged under his own skin, pressed close against Han’s side.

 _This is what you do to me_. His mouth closed over a flat nipple, teasing it to hardness. A quick intake of breath lifted Han’s chest as he licked and nibbled gently, raking his fingers through the dark hair that curled damply over Han’s breastbone.

“Luke—” Han curved a hand around the nape of his neck and gripped with unconscious strength. “C’mere,” he murmured, “lemme feel you, all of you, damnit.”

Luke moved over him, following the drift of hands that glided up his hips and sides, centered him until his body no longer touched the sheet anywhere and all he felt was Han’s skin against his own. Moored to planes of muscle and cliffs of bone, the strong heartbeat under a film of sweat. Propped on his elbows, eyes closed, he bent his head to the salty taste at the bottom of Han’s throat. Swift pulse inviting his mouth like a hidden current under a dry river bed.

His own movements faltered at the command of Han’s touch, the hands that roamed all over him, laid him bare to the moment, and came to rest, with explicit pressure, over the small of his back. A flush of wanting sank into him, pulsed like a sun through stormclouds, and for a moment he trembled with the effort of holding it all inside.

“What?” Han’s mouth stirred up a quick shiver at the junction of his neck and shoulder.

“It’s so... beautiful. The way you touch me. The way you make me feel.” He turned his face into the palm that cradled his cheek, searching its lines and callused ridges with his lips.

“Hell, Luke...” The sound of Han’s voice dragged over his skin like roughened silk. “You don’t have the first idea.”

One hand gripped the back of his head, holding him still for a slow, thorough kiss that left him breathless, demanding. The fading of a final barrier no more than a soft, melting pull that passed through him like a ripple of air. He’d never been close to anyone like this, never this secure and exposed, never wanted so much —

With a single breath, Luke gave himself over to the stark claim of sensation. Wanton heat fell across him with the blind speed of night, filled up with the scents and textures that crowded in on his breathing. A firm hold matched their bodies in perfect alignment, the heat of Han’s rigid cock pushing at the coiled tension in his groin. He rocked himself against Han, succumbed to the hands that cupped his buttocks and urged him down, twined legs trapping the rhythmic pressure between them. Each thrust of his hips loosening liquid shocks that passed back and forth through the patterns of joint breathing, the seductive symmetry of jumbled pulse. Low moans caught in his throat, the sweet, piercing pleasure radiating through his entire frame until he ached with it and came up for air like a swimmer.

A fine tremor settled at the bottom of his spine, ready to tear free. He framed Han’s face in both hands to gather the sight of him out of an unstoppable flow, the swift, scalding currents that would leave nothing but scattered embers in his body. To make this a memory.

When he looked at Han, the dimness cleared like quiet water, and there was a moment when he couldn’t breathe. A great stillness in him, something he’d only ever felt through the Force, never in the presence of another.

Unable to close his eyes, Luke moved again, felt the sharp incline of tension in the rise and fall of Han’s ragged breathing beneath him. It was motion and stillness, coming, opening, collapsing. It was being.

Raw and essential, it entered and filled him. Veered him along when Han tossed his head back with a raspy groan, hard shudders ripping through his frame. Lifted the weight off his body and cast a webwork of chills across him that seared like visible light.

And he sagged, breathing hard, into a crushing embrace and unfocused joy that lingered in the nerve like an afterimage. Slowly, volatile incandescence dropped away into a diffuse glow, about to revert into recollection. If only he could hold it there, at the center of himself. The closeness, the knowledge of touch, of comprehension beyond the cutting horizon of self and reason.

When he shifted at last, into the coolness of unused sheets, the room filled with a soft rush of sound that was rain, not breath, the rain that was falling, hours too late, into the night.

Rolling over, Han reached for the light switch, and an ancient glowbulb flickered up. They were sprawled out in a pool of light, flotsam on some unexpected shore. And now there were things that should be said, thoughts that emerged from a haze, fumbling for anchorage. Luke breathed around a small ache that lodged in his chest.

“Is this going to be... a regular occurrence?” His hand over Han’s breastbone like a claim. Already.

“Don’t know about you, but I could get used to it...” A mocking smile curled Han’s mouth, but his uneven heartbeat said something else. “...if it doesn’t kill me.”

“Is that a compliment?” A final tension knot unwound quietly. Stretching, Luke let the pleasurable languidness travel through him, head to foot.

“Don’t get me started.” The lazy smile faded as Han studied him with disconcerting intensity, and his hand followed the course of his eyes down Luke’s shoulder to the crook of his arm. “You know, I still don’t get it. Why you’ve stayed alone for so long.”

“It wasn’t exactly a deliberate choice.”

“Then what is it?”

Luke pillowed his face on folded arms, considering explanations he’d offered by rote. A matter of time, of patience, of pressing duty and necessary solitudes. But the faint ring of truth had faded from each argument in turn. _It just didn’t happen_ , he thought, an equivocation that wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. And Han was still waiting for an answer.

“It’s just... hard for me to get close to anybody.” Each word like a barrier, because he’d never told anyone. For another moment, he listened to the faint drumroll of rain on the roof’s metal skin. “It’s my Force gift. I’ve always picked up on other people’s feelings and moods somehow, but it came and went. Until Ben and Yoda started to train me... then it grew on me and just swamped my mind sometimes.”

He paused again, considering analogies that would clarify sensations he’d confronted only in the privacy of his mind. Like overlapping radio waves, each transmitting at full volume — and the metaphor almost matched the feeling. Except for the terrible intimacy.

“Sounds like it could get pretty overwhelming.”

“That’s why I had to learn how to shield against it.” Yet those barriers could be broken down, tossed aside with horrendous ease by someone as strong in the Force as Vader and Palpatine had been. Luke breathed in sharply.

The past, only the past. Nothing could breach those defenses now, except for the centrifugal forces within himself.

“I lose control of it when I’m not thinking,” he went on, “when I’m no longer in control of my reactions. And then the closeness is like—”

Crazy. The words he’d found yawed from inadequate to absurd.

“Like getting zapped where you least expect it,” Han guessed, “from the way this sounds.”

Luke closed his eyes. “There’s always too much, too soon... and I can’t bear it. It makes me feel... almost crippled sometimes. I can’t explain it any better.”

 _Like reaching for something, but whatever I found always felt wrong, and now_ —

And now. He held the thought like a breath, then released it.

“And this is different?” Han asked, tracing a thoughtful line up his back.

Luke nodded, letting the warmth slide through his body, its undemanding ease. An incremental gap remained between cause and effect, between the things he could say and the force of sensation. He said nothing more, not wanting to burden this moment with tomorrow, with the restless expectations that coiled in the hollow beneath his ribcage.

The gliding hand stilled on his shoulder and withdrew after giving him a short squeeze. Overhead, the rain tapped out placid seconds.

“I need to do something about Rycco, you know,” Han said at length. “We’ve got to deliver those crystals within the next couple of days, no matter what. I thought I’d go to Nam Korlis tomorrow. It’s not far, and it’s the only lead I’ve got.” His fingers toyed with a corner of the sheet for a moment. “Wanna come along?”

Luke gave him a sidelong glance, grasping at a lighter mood. “What else? I’m here to assess your integrity, remember?”

“Yeah, right,” Han growled, “I’m still on probation. Thanks for reminding me.”

He reached out reflexively, fingers wrapping around a lean wrist. “Han...”

“I know.” The glint of ironic humor faded into sober assurance as Han pulled him up. “Come on, how about a shower now?”

Later, in the restored shelter of darkness, Luke felt the faint stirs of Han’s breath against the nape of his neck. One hand splayed over his solar plexus, keeping him aware of a live connection.

If he slept next to Han every night, chances were that he’d be caught at a nightmare sometime. That most intimate moment of struggling back from a half-invented world that sank its chills and terrors into his body, never his mind.

The notion skated off into shadows without consequence. Fatigue dissolved coherent thought, and all that divided him from sleep was the lingering resonance of a breathless, boundless amazement. Perhaps they’d been coming to this for years.

* * * * *

Out of a glassy blue sky, mid-morning heat battered down at the Falcon. Han felt the old little tug on his heart at the sight of her. Never mind her prevailing state of disrepair, the Falcon was still his life’s armature, holding all the disparate patches together. He took the ramp in long strides, edgy and energized.

“Hey, Chewie,” he called down the corridor, while Luke stepped through the open hatch at a more thoughtful pace. “We’re aboard.”

A grouchy yowl answered him from the general direction of the passenger lounge. Still screwing a cover plate back into position, Chewbacca was his old moody self, though some of his defensive temper faded when he caught sight of Luke. Regarded him like the proverbial glimmer on the other side of a miscalculated jump. Which was, in short, how Chewie viewed their stab at running an independent business.

“We ready to take her up?” Han asked with a skeptical glance at the snarl of cables and homeless components on the deck plates.

Chewbacca grumbled something that summed up as a testy affirmative.

“Well, recalibrating the compensator can wait,” Han told him and started off towards the cockpit. Never mind all the popular saws about Wookiees, his partner was far from being a paragon of patience. “We’ll be back in a day.”

He was already flipping through vector calculations when he noticed that Luke had stopped in the doorway and paid serious attention to the rearranged gauges and displays in the bulkhead. Han checked a grin at the look of awkward eagerness that came over Luke’s face. _What a piece of junk!_ He’d always remember that first, spontaneous endearment from the brash farmboy who’d claimed to be a pilot.

He swiveled his flight chair. “What?”

“Just trying to catch up with the latest modifications,” Luke said, one hand lifting to the raised rim of a newly inserted booster panel. Like he needed to renew his acquaintance with the old freighter by touch.

“Want to fly her out of here?” Han offered.

Luke cut him a sidelong glance and grinned as if he’d been caught at a forbidden fantasy. “Maybe later.”

“Anytime,” Han returned with emphasis.

Someone with a natural gift for piloting like Luke never lost his touch. It was going to be fun to see him try out some impromptu maneuvers and watch how flying teased the wildness out of the dispassionate Jedi. The drive systems hummed nervously as the Falcon went through the startup cycle. For a moment longer, Han held Luke’s eyes, their magnetic blue an exact reflection of the sky beyond the viewport.

Next, the comlink pinged obtrusively. Han verified the frequency before he took the call. “Castor? What’s up?”

The minimal pause was enough to trigger an obnoxious alarm bell at the back of his head, then Castor’s sober baritone came through. “I just heard from my contact in Nam Korlis security. They’ve found Rycco.”

“Yeah? And why does that sound like it’s no good news at all?”

“They located him in the morgue, Han.” He could almost see Castor’s mouth thinning, sharp lines bracketing the corners. “And he’s been there for two days,” the bodiless voice finished.

Han set both elbows down on the control board while a score of misgivings went into flight. Something threatened to pull the ground out under him, inch by irretrievable inch.

“All right,” he said, pulling himself towards the necessary resolve. “I’m going anyway. Somebody’s got to make arrangements... and I want to know what happened to his ship and cargo.”

“Yeah.” Castor’s voice held a fleeting shade of sympathy. “Look for officer Rhesken. I’ll let him know you’re on your way.”

“Rhesken,” Han repeated mechanically as he reached for the deactivation switch. “Thanks.”

A string of curses jostled forward, churning to take aim at something, anything. Luke was at his shoulder, silent and attentive, and he didn’t know what kind of explanation he should offer. Rycco had been a sly loner, the kind who’d turned healthy mistrust into an art form and lived by his own code of honorable profit. Anger, responsibility and a cold knot of premonition lodged side by side in Han’s chest.

“I’m gonna find out what happened,” he said through clenched teeth while he punched through the preflight checks.

“Does he have a family?” Luke asked. “Anyone who should be contacted?”

“Not that I know. He never mentioned it, never made friends with anyone...” Han gestured vaguely. At his back, Chewbacca shuffled into the cockpit, picking up on the mood with a quizzical woof.

“Rycco’s taken the final jump,” Han said flatly, shoulders squaring as he braced for the deafening roar that didn’t come. Instead, Chewie blew out a noisy breath, and Luke’s hand settled on his shoulder, a thumb stroking across taut muscle.

“We’re gonna look into this,” Han repeated.

He recognized the unspoken offer in the gesture, the seductive pull from the back of his mind that stirred at Luke’s touch, but he needed to work through the tangles of suspicion before he could talk about this. He needed to focus himself.

As soon as the Falcon lifted, Han relaxed into his flight chair. Increasing velocity made it easier to breathe, concentrate on one thing at a time. He’d lived with the weight of anticipation for weeks, predicting another reversal like a squall line. No reason to kick up a fuss when he’d always known that change was inevitable. For half a lifetime, the mutability of all things had been his only religion.

The Falcon’s song of defiant speed closed like a bubble around him. Beside him, in the navigator’s chair, Luke’s presence was a disturbance in the patterns he’d invented for himself. Inner sight flashed to the memory of the night before, of Luke stretched out beside him, flushed, blond hair sticking damply to his forehead and temples, muscles tightening under smooth skin...

Han shifted uneasily at the quick jolt in his groin and pushed the memory beyond conscious reach. They were passing the topmost layers of stratosphere, and the compensator’s sluggish responses caused some minor gravity fluctuations he had to neutralize manually. Glad for the distraction, Han worked environmental controls, persuading the sensor array to accept alternative readings.

“Ready for lightspeed,” Luke’s calm voice announced a short while later.

 _Yeah_ , Han thought as he gripped the lever, _you can say that again_.

* * *

A lethargic voice guided the Falcon down towards an access chute, where one hatch after the other took its time rotating through the dilation cycles. From the docking bays, they made slow progress through the network of weapons checks and scan gates. Like any resort for the rich, Nam Korlis took pride from enforcing strict security regulations. Han carried only his light sporting blaster, and he’d loaned Luke a similar model. Outlandish sidearms such as lightsabers were sure to be confiscated.

A uniformed officer intercepted them in the main lounge. “Captain Solo?” The man flashed a service badge that spelled out his name beside a complex bar code. Rhesken, as expected. “Your associate on Ylab notified us of your arrival,” he explained. “I’m here to take you to the morgue, if it’s convenient.”

“Is that necessary?” Luke asked.

Rhesken slanted him the kind of perfunctory glance reserved for bystanders and gawkers. “We’ve found an ID on the body, but we prefer to have identification confirmed by someone who knew the victim.”

Victim. Not that he’d expected a natural cause behind Rycco’s death. Han drew up his shoulders against invisible weights dragging at him. “Then let’s get it over with.”

The morgue hadn’t been designed with consideration for bereaved families or grieving friends. Toxic fluorescence bathed the tiled floor and walls that amplified the smalllest sound and turned every breath into an obscenity. The stink of antiseptics had been poured on liberally to drown out other smells.

When Officer Rhesken opened a stasis drawer by sensor remote, Rycco’s flaxen hair was a sickly shade of yellow, and his skin had the rubbery appearance of a cheap replica.

“Yeah,” Han said at a glance, “that’s him.”

“Please record,” Rhesken instructed the droid in his company. “The witness confirms identification of the body as one Rycrist Angham.”

Another reluctant step took Han to the side of the drawer. The body swam in a milky energy cloud that clothed its lower regions in false modesty. Through the sterile field, Han could see the black, ragged puncture between the two bottom ribs. He cleared his throat. “Is this the injury that killed him?”

“Yes,” Rhesken answered gravely. “According to the med tech who conducted the post mortem, it was caused by a vibro blade, but that’s all we’ve been able to establish so far. The body wasn’t discovered until several hours after his death. No eye witnesses either.”

Han remembered to acknowledge that with a short nod. He couldn’t really expect the man to work up much heat over the murder of a notorious smuggler.

And this was how it ended for most of those freedom-loving hotshots who spent their lives flirting with destitution. If a wrong move didn’t turn them into random energy somewhere between stellar systems, which most of them would prefer. Anything but this. A plastisealed name tag wired to the wrist, dumped into a steel drawer in cold storage.

Han rubbed hard at the back of his neck. A strange numbness spread out from the center of his chest. “Can you tell me where you found him?”

“Certainly, sir.” Rhesken marched towards the shielded doors, turning himself into a human signpost. “A desolate street in the supplies district. Thirty-First, not too far from Second Intersection. The post mortem specifies that he died around midnight.”

When Han glanced sideways, he caught Chewbacca ruffling his fur against the cold. Time they got out of here. He forced himself to walk down the corridor at a steady pace.

“It could’ve been anybody,” he said to Luke, on their way back to the spaceport facilities. “Anybody Rycco ever conned or talked into a bum deal, or maybe he owed someone...”

Conjecture sprang a composite picture at him. Lonely footfalls down some unlit alley, the faint shimmer of a blade, a whisper of rubber soles and a professional killing executed under cover of darkness.

“What do we do now?” Luke asked, halting speculation with a look that grounded Han just like that.

“His ship’s been impounded, but I’ve got a legal claim to the cargo.” He reached for the chest pocket where he’d stowed the data chip, reminding himself of the rational order in which to approach things. “I’ve got a client waiting for those crystals.”

He might’ve guessed that things wouldn’t be so easy.

The portmaster, a stocky Rybet, pored over the files for several minutes, but when he finally sat up, bad news was scrawled all over his fleshy face. “I’ve checked and I’ve double-checked, but both cargo holds were empty when port security went in. I’m sorry.”

“Impossible,” Han snapped. “Rycco contacted me when he’d picked up the crystals.”

“Perhaps he needed them to cover for gambling debts. That’s not exactly uncommon.”

Perhaps not, but it was improbable, knowing Rycco. Han gripped the desk’s edge and leveled his fractious temper at the portmaster. “Way I see it, it’s more likely those crystals grew legs and walked out. Unless somebody gave ‘em a lift.”

The Rybet gave him a fair simulation of round-eyed innocence. “In this case, I suggest that you file a formal complaint, and port security will investigate the alleged... theft.”

“Yeah,” Han growled, “you bet I’ll do that.”

A short step behind him, Chewbacca towered, adding silent menace to his calculated belligerence. The Rybet’s hand twitched anxiously, but, all things considered, he didn’t look worried enough for someone involved in the embezzlement of unclaimed cargo.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, spreading his hands as he fell back into the protective clinch of his forma-chair. “But the ship itself is available. If you’re interested, notify us within the next eighteen hours.”

“I’ll think about it,” Han told him and tried not to grit his teeth as he stalked from the cluttered office.

Rycco had kept his ship in good shape, and the latest systems upgrade hardly dated back longer than a month. The Tripper should fetch a substantial sum, but with the lost cargo to make up for, there was no way in hell Han could afford buying it. From the side, Chewbacca rumbled a doubtful query.

“No,” Han said roughly. “I think the killers took the crystals. They had half the night to do it.”

“ _They_?”

He shot Luke a quelling glance. “Yeah, must’ve been more than one, to pull this off. And I’ll make sure port security looks into this. Even if a shipment like ours is small fry to them.”

“And then you want to take a look at the place where it happened,” Luke suggested as if the intention had been tattooed to his forehead all along.

“That’s right.” Like any well-behaved tourist, Han pinched a complimentary map from one of the stands. Maybe checking out the area would take him back to firmer grounds. And maybe it could stop him from thinking that he already knew exactly what had happened.

* * *

A public transport cabin took them straight through the palpitating heart of commerce, past a cityscape compounded from tasteful beiges and ochres, interspersed with ambitious segments of durasteel. From the clusters of bank and company buildings reared Nam Korlis Trade Center, a closed city within the capital’s brimming geometry. Eighty levels built in gold-veined marble and clearsteel made it a complex worthy of Coruscant.

“Rumor has it that the resident brokers use implants to stay wired into the stock market lines round the clock,” Han said. “You gotta make your first million, then maybe they’ll let you apply for a ringside ticket.”

Luke accorded the pristine grandeur one of his thoughtful looks. “Hard to imagine that the Rimworlds provide such a profitable market.”

“They don’t,” Han returned. “The main share of business that goes down here’s transactions with the Core. Tax laws are far more liberal, that’s why it pays for the big-wheels to go out of their way for some point-blank stockbroking.”

But besides attracting the headliners of galactic trade, the sheer amassment of loose credits also congregated legions of grifters, free-spacers and small-time crooks. That Rycco should have joined their ranks in the perpetual pilgrimage to the shrines of prosperity was hardly surprising.

The cabin slid along a curve of horizontal rails, slanting towards the outlying districts that shored up all the brazenly flaunted riches. They got off at Second Intersection where the traffic flow thinned to a mere trickle. Glidewalks ran into the grainy loam of aging quickthrow, and polished facades made way to the bare bones of permacite.

By the time they reached the corner of Thirty-First, there was no living soul within sight, and nothing moved on the lower levels besides binary couriers hurrying through the plexi pipes between blocks. Han lengthened his strides as he turned into the street that skirted the utilitarian fronts and shutter gates of near-identical warehouses.

The spot he’d come to examine was marked only by a dusty scrap of the bright orange tape security must’ve used to cordon it off. He kicked at it, trailed a glance across the wall in a vaguely diagonal line. Nothing distinguished the building from its neighbors left, right and across, except an innocuous spatter of dry, dark stains, already starting to fade into the robust gray surface, a good meter above the ground.

Han paced a small circle, calculating distance and direction, the time it would take for someone to slink out of a shadowed entrance and catch up with an unsuspecting pedestrian. A pointless exercise that yielded nothing substantial he hadn’t guessed before. Peripherally aware of Luke crouching down by the wall, he drew in a halting chestful of air. Overhead, a boxy supply carrier droned past, trailed by a digital voice that chanted the company name like a mantra. The planet’s higher gravity pressed down on his shoulders. Han turned to look across wind-scoured structures that cut off the sky at right angles.

There’d been a time when freedom was just another hop away, the wide open, star-spattered main in which all those pockets of restrictive order swam like mere pondweed. Now, he caught himself charting the limits in every situation. Maybe the truth was that he’d closed his eyes to all constraints too long, throughout the years when his sole ambition was to keep moving.

He straightened, walked a few steps to set himself back on track. What had Rycco been doing, cruising this area alone and on foot? Hardly the kind of turf where anyone took their hopes for lucky deals or entertainment.

Han swung a glance to the other side of the street. Through a gap between rooftops glistened a lit symbol, set off against the sullen sky in sulfurous blue. Only the top half of four letters were visible, framed by a serrated ring. He stared at it for a long, silent while, arrested by a sense of disconnection, existing only within this moment of disbelief and nagging suspicion.

“What is it?” Luke had joined him soundlessly, and the sudden question startled Han more than it should by rights.

He tilted his chin in the sign’s direction. “I don’t know. But it’s kind of the only landmark around here.”

Luke pulled up his shoulders. “Then let’s take a look.”

“Right.” Something in Luke’s calm tone pried him out of the strange mood, or maybe it was Luke’s presence alone. The underlying, constant thread of... attunement and wanting. Han settled a hand on Luke’s shoulder, rooting himself in memory, in the promise that anything was possible.

“Good you’re here,” he added and struck off down the street before Luke could say a thing.

A short walk took them to the domed building that proclaimed its significance with the four-letter acronym FoFA, repeated in brass above the portal’s arch. The heavy door plaque spelled it out as FRATERNITY OF THE FINAL ADVENT. But the portals were sealed shut, and the absence of a door buzzer suggested that visitors had better arrange for a meeting before they bothered to knock on these pearly gates. Too palatial for a charity, yet too sequestered for a trade union of any kind. Above the doors, a surveillance unit rotated slowly.

Han backed away from its pickup radius as a matter of habit. Somewhere close by stuttered the turbines of a hovercraft.

“There’s somebody on the other side of the building,” Luke said, prompted by the same cue.

By the back entrance, a barrel-chested human in the universal coveralls of deliverymen was trawling containers down the craft’s gangplank.

“Front door’s closed,” Han offered by ways of apology. “No info about business hours either.”

“Nobody in right now, save the droids,” the man answered shortly and nudged his antigrav sled towards the half-open door.

“You come here regularly?” Han asked.

The man straightened at that, his glance settling on Han exclusively, as if Luke was part of the landscape or had dropped from visibility altogether. And maybe he had. He’d pulled a similar stunt at Dayton’s party where most everybody’s attention had slipped past him like light over a non-reflective surface.

“Once or twice a week,” came the gruff reply, partnered with an inquisitive glance.

“Then maybe you can help me with something, pal.” Han dug into his pocket for a palm-sized piece of plastic Officer Rhesken had surrendered like an ultimate compromise. Resurrected from the portside scanner banks, Rycco’s likeness had been lasered into the matted surface, countless microdots complicating into the snapshot of one more hopeful transient.

“Friend of yours?” When the deliveryman eyed the halftone portrait, his expression went from disinterest to puzzlement to dawning recognition.

Han ignored his question. “You know him?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen this guy around.” The man scratched at this cheek as if to encourage recollection. “He must’ve been one of the couriers — least that’s what it looked like.”

“Remember when you saw him?”

“Two or three times...” The other man flicked a glance back at the hovercraft. “First time was weeks ago. He gave me a hand unloading. And I think I saw him leave when I came in earlier this week.” He pinched his nose, eyes narrowing with retrograde suspicion. “What’s this all about? This guy owe you some money?”

“Wish he did.” Han mustered an unconcerned grin. “He’s a friend, but he kind of vanished on me awhile ago, and the last thing I heard was that he’d dropped anchor here.”

The deliveryman yielded with a half-convinced shrug. “Maybe the management’s got his contact code. You’ll wanna come back later, sometime after the first evening service. 1800 something.”

“Thanks, pal, you’ve been a great help.” Han favored him with another bright grin before turning on his heel.

“Evening service?” Luke stretched the words thoughtfully as they retraced their steps into the lull of Thirty-First. “What do you think that means?”

“Sounds like it’s about some cult or religion, doesn’t it?” Han shrugged while his mind threw itself into assembling all the different pieces of the puzzle. “Not the kinda thing Rycco’d go for. But then he wouldn’t have to, if he just got himself hired as a courier. Might help to check up on the recent job offers.”

“We could go and eat something while we wait,” Luke proposed.

“Yeah, why not.” Han flipped his comlink on and wondered if he looked as haggard and strung-out as he felt. The grating whine of a sonic drill mingled with static when he opened a channel.

Aboard the Falcon, Chewbacca had resumed his tussle with the compensator.

“This is gonna take longer than we thought,” Han told him. “Couple more hours for you to play with the spare parts.”

Two blocks down, they located a big fast-food joint, equipped with a public infobooth behind a smudged plexi screen. Han purchased an access chip at the counter.

“Go ahead,” he told Luke, “I’ll be around shortly. Just wanna check the classifieds.”

Though the booth reeked of sweat and spilled ale, Han paged judiciously through several months’ worth of want ads until the finder settled on a short entry, highlighting it in bashful yellow.

FOFA, it read, 05/113 DISTRICT K7: EXPERIENCED COURIERS REQUIRED FOR SENSITIVE TRANSFERS. CONTACT M. PEARSON.

Han slapped his palm down flat against the terminal and committed the name to memory. One riddle had come untangled much faster than he’d expected. Almost too easy, the ever-present voice of professional mistrust pointed out, but he opted to ignore it for the time being.

When he joined Luke at one of the tables, a bowl full of mixed stew sat waiting for him. His stomach responded with a doubtful twinge, and suddenly the crude antiseptic smell burned in his nostrils again. Han gave up on the idea of eating and instead poured himself a drink from the iced water jug.

“Found something?” Luke asked.

“They were hiring not too long ago.” Han took a swig and let the pleasant coolness make its path from his throat to his stomach. “My guess is, Rycco stopped over at a time when he was scrabbling for some cash and just latched onto the opportunity.”

“But he never mentioned anything to you.”

“Not a word.” Han watched the glass fog up and wrapped his hand around it. “I _thought_ he’d tell me if he’d taken on another job, but it looks like I was wrong.”

Luke picked up the spoon, twirled it in his fingers, then placed it down again beside his own bowl. “So, if he worked for the Fraternity, that would explain why he happened to be in the area...”

“But not why he was attacked,” Han finished. “Depends on the merchandise he was hauling.”

“If he carried anything worth killing for,” Luke said haltingly, “would they let him go without an escort?”

“Maybe they misjudged the risk. Or maybe he just got paid...” Han broke off, all too aware that he was pushing the limits of plausibility. That he wanted to believe in a street ambush for cash or vendibles, so he could dismiss the glaring alternative.

From across the table, Luke studied him closely. “What is it that you aren’t telling me?”

For a second or two, the question just hung in the stale air, loaded and impassable. Han drew a quick breath for denial and changed his mind midway. Luke had always been too good at reading him.

“Something too vague to talk about right now. Trust me on this, okay?” Behind the brittle barrier of his runaround reasoning, frustration climbed an exponential scale.

“Okay.” Luke held his eyes a moment longer, a thoughtless smile forming out of nowhere. Something about it made Han want to grab him and get out of here, turn his back on everything else.

When Luke got up to find the bathroom, the fading remains of that smile stirred up the dangling threads of memory and unnumbered questions. Han picked up his glass again, mind already shifting away from the present.

Like a visual echo, the half-lit bar-room with its distorted tunes and a rough, colorful clientele conjured their first encounter in Mos Eisley. The half-grown boy with his big blue eyes and his teenage temper, flashing from enthusiasm to righteous anger. And he’d watched that cute, obnoxious kid grow into a determined fighter, a lot tougher than anyone would have given him credit for. Resilient, complex, and mystifying.

All that strength and the damage done. Han stirred with familiar, disbelieving impatience and reached for his glass again. But for all he’d achieved, that was how Luke thought of himself. Damaged, and not just because of his hand. Increasingly short of people he could trust. Increasingly stifled.

Though Leia would disagree, his involvement in rebuilding the Republic hadn’t done Luke much good. When he should’ve been free to choose his own life, his escalating urge to prove himself had roped him into collaboration with the worst kind of hero worship. With typical, short-sighted arrogance, everyone assumed that victory had cast the last Jedi in his proper, final mold and held him to it. A function and a fantasy more than a man, and only half real. They had no idea.

Something akin to electricity gathered in the pit of Han’s stomach. That mouth under his own, the strength in that body pressed up against him, the way Luke had touched him...

The memory gathered momentum, and Han took another quick swallow from his glass to confine it. The past couple of days had snapped him from a strange limbo state he’d entered without even noticing. Luke had been such a big part of his life for so long. And now, all of it came together like a pattern emerging from knots and tangles and too many loose ends.

 _This is how it should be — what we could be_.

Han tilted the glass and watched thin flakes of ice dissolve into water. Luke had been gone only a few minutes, and he was beginning to think it couldn’t be true. Like reality and all his plans had started to disintegrate and clung to him in disorganized patches.

When Luke returned to the table, he asked, “How d’you do that? Make people not notice you?”

Luke shot him a look full of amusement. “There’s not much to it. You do it yourself all the time, when you want to remain inconspicuous. You just don’t draw attention to yourself. All I do is... enhance the effect.”

“Yeah, you’d have to,” Han said dryly. “Otherwise...” He gestured eloquently, now that he’d made sense of his own question. There were seven months to make up for, seven goddamn months of floundering and urging himself through repeated changes of direction. Han reckoned he’d at least done a good job fooling himself, but that, too, was something he could deal with later.

“Seems like you’ve got the opposite effect on me,” he elaborated. “The more I look at you...” He leaned back in his seat and raked Luke with a slow, charged glance. “Remind me to give you a demonstration later.”

His reward came with a soft, startled laugh. Pure joy of being flashed from Luke’s glance and shot through him with suggestions made of heated velvet. _Real enough_ , Han thought. _And more than good enough for me_.

Why worry about the limits of their situation, the knife’s edge that would eventually put him to the test? For the moment he felt almost in tune with the crowd who’d drifted in here to wait out the time until dark, with their short-term, pocket-sized hopes. _Bring on the night_ , coaxed a sultry voice from the music reel, _just bring on the night_.

* * *

A pasty hint of bronze caught on the building’s dome and set off the blue sign like a discolored halo. The portals of enlightenment had been thrown open wide.

“All right,” Han said, eyes tracking the silhouette of a gangly Whiphid who hastened towards the light, “let’s give this a try.”

Luke fell back a step when they entered, a vigilant shadow at his shoulder. The elderly woman at the reception desk wore a mass-produced replica of homespun garb and an earnest smile to match it.

Han worked at a similar expression. “I’m here to see the manager. Mr. Pearson.”

Her eyes flew up and measured him with blunt curiosity that turned to disapproval in a moment. Most likely, she’d assessed his readiness for enlightenment and found it wanting. From the depth of the building floated a low burble of chorusing voices.

“Follow the main corridor,” the receptionist said. “Brother Pearson’s office is the third on the right.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Han cocked an eyebrow as he turned back to Luke. _They’re all brothers here. Right_.

Thick carpeting swallowed the sound of their footsteps. From the left, a wide arch spilled a mixture of incense, candy-colored light and murmurs into the corridor. Han paused for a look inside.

The congregation in the hall comprised maybe a hundred worshippers, most of them dressed in loose, drab robes, serene fashion plates of humility. The far wall carried a colorful tapestry overflowing with figures and symbols. Against that backdrop, a preacher in authentic-looking sackcloth embodied the essence of self-denial.

“The end is approaching,” he said in the voice of absolute confidence that required no PA system or raised volume to assert itself, “and we have to prepare ourselves for what is to come — we, the Chosen, who have been granted the privilege of vision and understand the signs...”

Responsive mutters rose from the crowd like smoke. Some of the believers wore misty-eyed smiles that shut out the world. Han stopped an impulse to shake his head. Why was it that most every cult drew its purpose and momentum from the concept of a terminal meltdown? A whiff of sour body smells suggested that, for one reason or another, the Chosen had stopped paying attention to personal hygiene and relied on the liberal use of incense for compensation. Han shifted his weight back towards the corridor.

“I’ll stay here while you talk to Pearson,” Luke said, eyes wandering across the congregation. A faraway look had come over his face, unfocused, unprejudiced and completely inscrutable.

“Okay.” Han saved several questions for later. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

As he continued down the corridor, he hooked a thumb behind his gunbelt and focused on retrieving the mind-set of a busted, job-hungry spacer. Not that it came too hard.

Pearson’s door stood open in silent invitation to the world at large. With a dutiful rap on the door-frame, Han stepped inside and scanned the medium-sized room, the desk with its modern appliances and devotional accessories, and the man behind it. Pearson was middle-aged and balding, his flabby face composed of placidity like the clay for any other expression. Right now, he was sporting a look of benevolent disinterest.

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve heard you’re looking for pilots. Friend of mine told me about it.” Han paced up to the desk like any petitioner with a desperately personal agenda. “Got my own ship, and I’m used to the drill. Instant delivery, no questions asked.”

“Ah.” Pearson awarded him a fuzzy look of acknowledgment. “I’m afraid we’re not hiring at this time...” He glanced down into the pages of an old-fashioned planner. “But if you’d like to leave your credentials and contact code, there might be another opening sometime.”

“Don’t know how much longer I’ll be working this sector.” Han pushed a copious amount of impertinence into the face of all that detachment. “Sure you don’t need anyone right away?”

An absent-minded frown developed as Pearson started to leaf through his planner. “You said a friend recommended us?”

“That’s right. Rycrist Angham. You gotta know him. I think he just dropped by for another tour.”

“Angham.” Abruptly, the man steepled his fingers and raised his head to contemplate a spot on the wall.

“You remember him,” Han prompted.

“Yes, yes...” A soft smile bloomed on Pearson’s face and covered a start of unease. “It’s my job to keep track of employment records. He came in as a replacement for one of our regulars around solstice day. Only for a short period, however. His last assignment dates back at least a month. The twentieth, I think it was.”

 _Marvelous memory_ , Han thought sardonically. The man didn’t even have to check his personnel files to supply all the nitty-gritty.

“You sure about that?” Han tried to sound properly confounded. “He mentioned something ‘bout heading here the last time we talked, and that was just a week ago.”

“Well, perhaps he has other business contacts on Nam Korlis,” Pearson replied evenly.

“Yeah, I guess that’s possible.” Han scratched his plan to mention the murder in the hope that shock would trigger some telltale reaction. No doubt about it, the Fraternity had prepared for the event that someone came asking troublesome questions.

“Thanks for your time,” Han added and took himself to the door.

Pearson nodded. “And good day to you, Brother.”

The false sincerity scaled up to a level that betrayed the mechanics of calculation, though that in itself was hardly suspicious. In the back-rooms of any religious theater, business operators pulled strings that kept their cult well-heeled and growing. Still, Han wished he could have asked about the cargo Rycco had transported for this organization. _Sensitive transfers_. Hard to believe that referred to hauling sacred relics or a special brand of incense.

In the big hall, the service continued, and the chanted responses had gained volume and fervor. Han paused inside the archway for a quick glance around, but failed to spot Luke among the sway of bodies. Was there something special going on here that’d collared his attention?

Han breathed slowly of the scented air. Like a vapor, exuded warmth and agitation hung above the crowd. And just like them, he’d been living a fantasy, holed up inside a private construct of the future. Chewie had been right all along.

Pinpoint lights flickered across the worshippers’ nodding heads, and Han craned his neck for the source. A holographic panorama of stars floated under the vaulted roof, several brilliant suns draped against the bright band of a nebula. Something about the constellation looked oddly familiar. Sure that it didn’t belong in this sector, he started perusing his mental store of star charts.

“How did it go?”

Caught out one more time by the nearness of Luke’s voice, Han swung around sharply. “Come on,” he said and tipped his head towards the exit. “I’ll tell you outside.”

Rapid dusk had plunged the streets in darkness, relieved only by the low-powered gloaming of infrequent streetlights. From the backyards and alleys, the smells of chemicals and urine blended through traffic-polluted air. Thirty-First stretched as dark and deserted into the night as it must have at the time of the ambush, though it wasn’t anywhere near as late.

As they walked towards the transport station, Han gave Luke a rundown of his conversation with Pearson, finishing with, “He knows Rycco’s dead and doesn’t want his club associated with it.”

“There could be a number of reasons for that.”

“Yeah. Could be anything from guilty conscience to keeping security from poking their noses into unswept corners.”

“If they’re involved in any kind of illegal business...” Luke paused, considering. “Is that what you think?”

“Can’t discard the possibility without some more info about these pious brothers.” But that kind of information couldn’t be tracked down through offical records or legal channels; digging up the dirt would take time and credits. Suspicion plied at Han’s mind with vexing insistence, scoffing that he’d consciously set himself on the wrong trail.

Luke broke his stride to face him. “Han, what—”

“Not now.” He grimaced at the sharpness in his tone. “Look... I’m sorry. We’ll talk about it when we’re back on the Falcon.” Now that he’d defined the limit for himself, there was no room left for regrets and coverups.

“I just wish you’d trust me,” Luke said evenly, without reproach, though something else roughened his voice.

A distant glowlantern shed just enough light to sculpt one side of his face in amber, and before Han could think about it, he’d lifted a hand to touch, tracing a clear line from temple to jaw.

“That’s not it,” he said, groping around for some explanation, but every loose end brought up the whole tangle of questions and consequences. And he was far too ready to lose himself in the look Luke gave him. All focused, dark blue intensity, half-buried in shadow. _If I could have this for another week a day an hour_...

It still struck him with wrenching amazement, that his touch could summon that soft, incredulous look to Luke’s eyes. Tension sang out from every nerve along his spine and thickened between them. Han couldn’t let himself think of what he wanted — how much he wanted — and how easily Luke could reach places inside him that he’d tried to block from existence.

He leaned down, and Luke moved with the same impulse, arms circling Han’s waist with uncompromising certainty. There was no hesitation in the kiss, nothing but direct, questing warmth as their mouths met and opened to each other, and a slow wave of desire rolled through all his senses. Han buried his fingers in the blond hair. The gliding motion of Luke’s tongue against his own sent brief, heated jolts through him. Touched something in him that could break open any moment, edgy and dangerous, to unsettle the patched-up patterns of his life. It wasn’t Luke’s fault. He needed to think. He didn’t want to think about it. Just let it happen and confront the more complicated changes at their own pace.

When they broke apart, Luke’s quickened breath was a caress against his face, distinct from the cooling air. Han swallowed against the pressure of wasted time, of silence. “Luke, I—”

A rustle from somewhere at his back cut him off. With the cold clarity of alarm, he recalled the unlit alley they’d just passed, and adrenaline flared into his veins.

“Wait,” he said under his breath, pulling away. One hand already going for his blaster while the other enforced the command with a tight squeeze of Luke’s shoulder. “Don’t move.”

It couldn’t be. But if it was, he had to keep Luke out of it. At all costs.

Blaster raised before him, Han crept towards the corner — and wheeled at the soft click from an unsuspected direction. He managed to squeeze off one shot before something cold lashed around his throat and pulled tight.

“Welcome,” mouthed a sullen voice by his ear. “Welcome to the land of the dead.”

Mad sunspots exploded in his sight, reeled, spiraled and danced off into blackness.

* * * * *

Torn from complete abandon, Luke lost one crucial second to surprise. Then he flung himself forward, into the darkness that ripped with the single shot Han fired like a warning. Jagged shadows fled across vertical planes. Hot plasma reflected off a steel surface and spun outward — and the light wrapped around him with trenchant white threads.

He staggered as the ground lurched abruptly. Angry brilliance seared his focus, rained down in a spray of permacite fragments, and packed quickthrow slammed the breath from his lungs. The mesh that tightened around him caught his fall to oblivion with an electric bite. Something like heated fiberglass trapped his arms to his sides. Head, torso, hips wreathed in a blinding web that scrambled his perceptions. And every muscle had to be forced into stillness. _Calm. Do not struggle. Open your eyes_.

Four endless meters across, Han had collapsed on the ground, defenseless to the consortium of silhouettes crouching over him. Flat, black shapes in the blurs of gray.

The blunt tip of a boot prodded Luke’s side and nudged him for signs of resistance. He let himself go limp inside the stun netting while the miasma of light and throbbing energy filtered down to something comprehensible. He’d been trussed up in a web of charged fibers that delivered electric shocks at each point of contact. Throwing every trained reflex off balance, to replace it with wrenching spasms. And each rebellious movement would trigger instant punishment until he’d stunned himself into a stupor.

Some meters down the street, abrupt motion passed through the huddle of assailants like a particle wave. They’d hauled Han to his feet and fell back, as if clearing the stage for a show of defiance.

“What d’you want now?” Han’s voice, straining hard for a tone of careless arrogance.

“You still owe us, Solo.” The reply could have been given by a machine. It held no partiality, cogwheels of cause and effect grinding together to produce violence.

“Like hell I do.”

Another silhouette blotted Han from view and instead of an answer delivered a direct blow. The flat, sickening thud of a hard object striking flesh reeled through Luke’s senses.

“What, you think you can slug the credits out of me?” Winded and sharp with pain, Han’s tone still held a cynical edge. He’d gathered enough breath for a curse when he launched himself into a one-sided fight.

 _What do they want?_ Luke closed his eyes, sank behind that marginal defense to reclaim control, but his focus wavered. The Force swirled wantonly around him, clutched like terror, like desperate rage in his chest. _Calm. Be calm_.

The netting covered him only to mid-thigh, taut wire cutting into the cloth of his pants, catching on the hilt of his blaster. There’d been no time, no need to take that from him. _Who are they?_

He traced a restless presence somewhere behind him. A watchman who kept his eyes on an unwanted witness. Dirt gritting under soft soles as the man shifted his weight. A shadow that fell across Luke’s back with the swift chill of memory.

... _I can feel your anger_.

The brief tangle was over when Han crashed into iron shutters, a resonant, off-tone clang vibrating up and down the street. A sulfur glow outlined brief movement, then the shadows settled into human forms and barely contained aggression. They’d dragged Han up against a wall and pinioned his arms.

“You’re too much trouble.” The robotic voice came alive with a vicious calm. “And what’s more, you stir up trouble for us.”

“Flattering,” Han muttered, a painful slur in his voice, “to know I’m that important to you guys.”

“It stops here,” the other answered with complacent matter-of-factness.

Like a long-awaited signal, his words raised swift, feral action — sweat and excitement and harsh sounds bloating the night air when they started to pummel Han’s unprotected body with mechanical blows. Each smack of fists against flesh struck out at Luke, set off giddy tremors that rolled through him like meltwater from a glacier.

 _Stop it stop this_ —

Muscles responded faster than mind, and punitive voltage struck at the small of his back.

... _blue lightning racing up his spine to curl around his eyeballs. Followed by his own scream_.

He was silent, breathing fast. Each breath bought at a precise, brutal sting against his heaving chest. The side of his face burned with the scrub of gravel and charged wire. His head swam.

He couldn’t watch. Had to let them think he’d passed out and free himself of the inhibiting energy web. But he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t shut out the sounds, the hard hiss of breaths punched from Han’s lungs. The lurching movements, boots skidding with each kick and jab. With murderous intent.

Behind Luke’s eyelids crawled everything he couldn’t see as imagination unscrambled each sound into a catalog of injuries. Bruises swelling over bone, a trickle of blood from mouth and nose. The growing risk of internal bleeding. Luke squeezed his eyes shut, tasted copper from biting his lip too hard, a blue shimmer taunting again from the edge of his vision.

... _and your friends, young Skywalker, will not survive. Watch. There is no escape_... 

Caught in that arctic radiance, he listened for the snap and splinter of bone. Under the spell of old nightmares, for the worst was just waiting to happen. Han’s rasping breaths had turned to half-stifled groans. Gloved fists pistoned forward and back and didn’t stop, didn’t stop —

_stop stop stop_

Han couldn’t take this much longer.

 _But I can stop it_.

His own body jerked with uncontrollable impulse, with combat instincts that had been drilled into him, and high voltage came flooding back to prey on vulnerable nerve. He turned in on himself and found only anger. Bright and building steadily, like a crackling charge from a fusion core.

 _Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger_.

He burrowed into the generous heat, into the rage that enveloped him like a protective skin. Absorbing the shallow electric stings into vast, careless power that uncoiled around him and inside him. Fine currents formed out of darkness, gorged on the rich blend of pain and fear. If he tapped into them, he could shred the netting like spiderweb. Something cold and hollow entered Luke’s chest to ease the pounding of his heart.

He could summon each man’s weapon from its holster with surgical precision. Shape thoughts into missiles, into hands that snapped cervical vertebrae. And not one of them would survive. So easy, now.

 _Quicker, easier, more seductive_...  
_Damn you, Yoda_.

He knew what he could do. His vision cleared and scaled a point several meters above the street. Locating six men in anonymous black and the watcher behind him, their loose array in the deserted street. The sluggishness in their movements, satiated with prodigal violence. He could smell the storm of arousal in their blood. Something far too similar in his own hammering pulse. He could be the night that fell over them.

The beating had stopped. Han slumped in his captors’ grip, hair falling forward into his battered face. When they released him, he kept himself upright with nothing but that unyielding, mutinous pride.

“We’ll take our payment now, Solo.”

“So finish what you started!” Han gritted, each word a furious effort. Through his defiance shimmered clear awareness of a lost battle, the need for this to be over.

Anticipation carved out a brief silence. Nothing now but the distant drip and patter of water, the jumbled breathing of men who’d cornered their prey. A frazzle of unstable energy in the streetlight.

 _I can stop this_...  
... _but not at all cost._

The terror of that truth rent Luke’s thoughts, and he let go, fell — into the tearing that filled up with sorrow as lucid Force gushed through the breach. His eyes fogged with tears. He drew on the small electric discharges for clarity — focused, cleansing pains — and mapped them in his mind. Not fast enough.

A gloved hand shot upward, phosphorous light flashing across a metal edge, and something wrung a first, jagged cry from Han as he doubled over.

No longer trapped and divided, Luke dropped all his defenses, stretched hard with his innermost sense to forge a connection. Seizing on thready pulse, Han’s shallow breaths rattling like pebbles in a river.

Shock trembled through him as he pulled the surge of sensation roughly into himself. This was nothing he’d ever attempted before. This was as intimately familiar as each burning intake of breath. To feel Han’s pulse lace through his own, the pain that battered his consciousness, and every part of his body recalled —

...sensations that fell into him, piercing like arrows out of an empty sky, across a distance of lightyears.

 _they’re in pain_  
_will they die yoda will they_

The swamps of Dagobah exhaled stifling humidity, mists unfurling over the water, and the somnolent buzz of insects turned into a low electronic hum. A palm-sized instrument strobed purple needlebeams across Han’s face and neck. It had to be some miniature version of a neural stimulator, firing each vicious impulse at the fogged layer of awareness that could still process sensation and recognize pain.

_i saw... a city in the clouds ― yoda tell me will they die_

The same kind of torture, applied directly to delicate synapse and tender neural fiber.

Luke gasped in recognition as he smothered the pain within himself. On Dagobah, the same connection had snapped part of his soul from its state of unknowing. Something had stirred awake then, arced outward in wild, heedless flight, and opened him to Han’s presence. _Because we belong_...

Needles of light pulsed avidly over Han’s chest. He crashed to his knees in painfully slow motion, unable to catch his own weight.

Luke wrenched away from the blind panic that pushed against the inside of his ribs, air thickened into unbreathable substance. Control. He searched along the meshes, tracing thin energy flows to the nodes that fed power into the netting. He touched Han’s life, claimed a brush with all that untamed radiance for himself, and breathed with the rise and ebb of pain that entered the nerve with savage force. It wrapped around him, a blinding shield, a memory...

... _energy surrounds us and binds us_...

And he was at peace. Seconds slowed and opened before him. One by one, he snapped the connectors and cut off the paralyzing energy. Within his bionic hand, settings changed minutely, and he twisted it around until his fingers grasped the complex knot that held all the tightly strung wires in place.

Cloned skin ripped as he tore through the knot with the strength borrowed from a steel skeleton. He rolled on the ground, lashing out with both feet in the same motion. A single kick swept the watchman’s legs out from under him, his back hitting the street with a dull thud.

... _for knowledge and defense, never for attack_.

Luke was on his feet before he’d completely shed the netting, but it didn’t matter. Strands of brilliant Force spiraled outward, ripped sidearms from snug holsters and hurtled them high. He pulled their triggers in mid-flight to spatter the heavy air with fire and ozone. Hot plasma scratched past the frozen silhouettes and missed them by millimeters. They spun towards him then, out of stunned surprise. Pale faces disembodied in the fierce, fleeting light, the rest of them left in darkness.

Luke raised his own blaster in both hands, in silent warning. All around him, the Force eddied, a soundless wind, and he touched the streetlamp with it until luminous electrons glared, a burning of sulfur in his lungs as if he’d breathed in the light itself.

When the man he’d felled scrambled gracelessly to his feet, Luke waved him over to the group. All lined up before him, clear and solid targets. But an unfeeling stillness had replaced all the rage, shielding the part of him that stayed wrapped around Han’s lifesense, the bright, threatened, rebellious core. The stridency of pain. With the draw of another breath, Luke focused the white glare at their minds, blinding thought and recognition.

One by one, the assassins backed off, retreating out of his targeting range until they finally turned and ran. Footsteps rang back from a recess of night, diffuse echoes that washed around Luke as he raced across the final two meters. His senses swerved like a radar that recognized only Han’s vital signs.

He staggered, fell to his knees by Han’s side. Felt the brief, instinctive flinch and ached with it.

“It’s me,” he murmured, his control slipping again towards desperation. _No one will touch you now_.

His hand hovered above the bruised chest as the Force soothed labored, gritty breaths. Overhead, the streetlight throbbed unsteadily, a yellow haze molding the slumped body, picking out the mixed sheen of sweat and blood on Han’s face.

Through the tenuous link between them, Luke drew the stark, cramping pain into himself with huge gulps like air and gave of the limitless energy in return, until the stumbling heartbeats grew stronger. An inchoate mutter passed Han’s broken lips.

“Don’t talk,” Luke whispered and gathered him in a light hold. Grief rose up inside him, a lambent tide. “It’s over. You’ll be okay.”

His fingers shook when he reached for the comlink and thumbed a switch. “Chewie?”

The Wookiee’s bark revealed that, with one word, he’d already given himself away.

“Get us an ambulance, a med team,” Luke said tightly. “We’re on Thirty-First, between Second and Third Intersection. Han needs a doctor — fast.”

* * *

The med-center was a palace, each of its elaborate lounges and galleries astir with the narcotic murmurs of advanced equipment, the trickles of water from a marble-rimmed pond. A litany of reassurance blending through private fears.

Numb with relief and fatigue, Luke sank into a low-slung settee beside Chewbacca. The Wookiee sat hunched forward, closing himself around a tenacious urge to brood on worst-case scenarios.

“You heard the doctor,” Luke said softly. “Han is going to recover completely, the damage isn’t that bad.”

His voice caught on the stale diction, and Chewbacca turned his large head slowly, like a mountain shifting. The one pressured groan that slipped past his fangs was loaded to the limit with self-reproach.

“Chewie...” Luke met the blunt stare and dropped his guard completely. “I was there. If you want to blame someone, blame me for not being able to prevent this. I had a feeling... a hunch that something was wrong when we walked back out into the street. But I didn’t pay attention.”

Russet fur bristled around Chewbacca’s eyes as he shook his head, and with slow, pointed thoroughness assessed Luke’s face and neck. The scrawl of small cuts and welts that evidenced his struggle against the stun web.

“That’s nothing.” Though his skin burned all over his chest and back, the stinging sensations seemed vague and remote, like things seen through frosted glass. He let himself sag, eyes drifting across the polished planes and angles, an array of cloudy mirrors regressing into fluorescent light.

Han was in a room down on the right, already healing under the scrupulous attention of medics and droids. They’d run a careful diagnosis that turned up two broken ribs below the swellings and bruises that covered his torso, and a punctured lung. Instant bacta immersion had taken care of that. No other internal injuries, no more cause for alarm, and yet a fine tremor kept all of Luke’s senses on edge. A quelled rush, same as on Dagobah, as if his own life had been yanked forward, into an airless zone where everything was at stake.

 _I’ve got to go to them_ , he heard his own voice, full of a desperate conviction that cut him loose from the bright chain of Yoda’s logic. At the time, he’d discarded hazard and unpredictables with a blunt belief in loyalty. But in truth, there’d been no choice at all. Just that tug on his soul he couldn’t refuse, couldn’t comprehend. Had his father counted on provoking that response?

 _But how could he, when he didn’t even know me!_ With an angry move, Luke stifled protest and frustration. He was too tired, too unstrung to reason this out. And by taking a plunge into riddles of the past, perhaps he was missing the real connection. The only parallel that made sense.

Vader hadn’t intended to kill Han, and maybe this savage attack had been planned as a warning, too. Each blow, each carefully aimed intrusion of agony part of a cryptic message, inflicted on flesh and bone.

Luke glanced down at his right hand where a rosy patch of synskin covered the deep gashes. The dressing was purely cosmetical, applied to conceal the disturbing presence of silicate and wiring instead of living flesh. He’d have to recalibrate the roughly manipulated settings sometime, his middle and index finger felt nerveless. Luke flexed them experimentally.

He wanted to get up and pace. He wanted to call security and check up on the progress of their investigation.

While conscientious droids lowered Han into the bacta solution, he’d reported to a security officer, Rhesken’s night-shift replacement. A haggard veteran who took random notes in a private shorthand and finally regarded Luke with frank resignation. Based on testimony that vague, only a lucky coincidence could lead to an arrest, and they both knew it.

Luke turned his head for a sidelong glance at Chewbacca, the heavy solidity of his profile. Underneath his open grief simmered a deeper unrest Luke couldn’t identify. Was it the weight of a life debt, stooping the broad shoulders? And was that why Chewie refused to blame him?

He’d lost his edge of concentration, too caught up in Han’s presence, the need to be near him. Too easily distracted when he should’ve been alert to the slightest hint of trouble. He couldn’t let that happen ever again. And yet it was part of that strange pull, the absolute certainty that’d gripped him...

A large, furry hand landed on his shoulder and brought his circular thoughts up short. When he met the Wookiee’s eyes, concern bled through angry watchfulness.

“I know.” Luke took a deep breath and felt drowsiness rise, a snowy frizzle like static in his mind. “I’ll try to relax.”

After a while, he slipped into a light doze, his mind adrift within a tapestry of small noises. The jangling chimes that called doctors and nurses to their patients like an intermittent lament. The passage of hushed, purposeful footsteps.

He was wide awake when the supervising doctor approached, a datapad jammed under her arm, her dark face smiling good news at them. Professional serenity silhouetted against windows that were awash with morning.

“Your friend is fit for transport,” the woman announced pleasantly. “Provided that he is kept immobile for at least another twenty hours. Full bacta immersion isn’t necessary anymore to complete the healing process, but the tissue regenerators won’t work properly if the dressings are dislodged.”

Luke traded only a brief glance with Chewbacca. If they stayed on Nam Korlis, perhaps they’d eventually track down the principals behind this nocturnal ambush, but too many unknown variables threatened Han’s security here.

“Thanks, we’ll be sure to take care of that,” he said, pushing to his feet. “We’d like to take him home as soon as possible.”

* * *

Han didn’t stir until the Falcon entered Ylab’s atmosphere and the slow grind of repulsor lifts signaled planetfall. Under the influence of lenitives and narcotics, he’d remained unconscious throughout the trip, strapped safely to the medical bunk. When the landing struts made contact with solid ground, Luke left his place on the acceleration couch to stand beside the bunk, at the end of his vigil.

Bacta strips concealed the uglier cuts and bruises on Han’s face, but angry marks were still visible on his jaw and throat. Slow breaths lifted his chest beneath several layers of cell-regenerator paks and bandages. When Luke unlatched the straps and peeled away the tape that sealed electrodes to Han’s upper chest, dark eyebrows twitched in reflex. Lashes fluttered, lifting hesitantly.

Soft footsteps approached through the corridor, and from the doorway Chewbacca mewled a worried question.

“Yes, he’s waking up now.” Luke reached for the limp right arm to remove the IV drip.

With a confused murmur, Han groped around the blankets, cleared his throat and tried again until syllables took shape. “What the—”

“Easy.” Luke covered the puncture in his arm with a small gauze pad. “You’re almost home.”

“Hey, kid...” A dry cough stopped Han. “You all right?” he rasped out. “An’ Chewie?”

“We’re fine. You’re the only one who needed medical attention.” Luke would have stepped away from the bunk, but Han grabbed his wrist, and he stopped again, surprised by the exactness and strength of that grip.

“You got me out of this... didn’t you?” Han’s voice was still hoarse, analgesics and disorientation blurring one word into the next.

Luke shrugged and nodded mutely. Han studied him a moment longer with an odd look of satisfaction, as if this knowledge set something right.

“You need to rest now,” Luke said softly, and for the time being ignored all the questions that filed up to demand their dues.

When Chewbacca lifted him carefully into a secure carrying hold, Han muttered half-hearted protest, but a menacing rumble silenced him. The afternoon haze curdled with clouds, gathering strength for the next rainfall when they descended the path to the house.

 

Half an hour later, Han drifted off again in his own bed, yielding to the drugs’ lingering hold and the rain’s drowsy patter. Chewbacca had just left to shut down the Falcon’s systems for the night when the drone of a smaller craft’s engine rattled the front door.

Luke commanded himself out of the chair at Han’s bedside. Rain dripped in a thin curtain down from the eaves to the porch railing.

“Hi...” From his glider’s cockpit, Castor frowned at him, fine spray glistening on his hair and face. “Han didn’t come back with you?”

“He’s here, but—” Luke pulled up his shoulders. “Asleep right now. Maybe you’d better look in on him tomorrow. Unless it’s something really urgent...”

Castor shook his head slowly, as if the motion could help reorganizing his thoughts. The rain was running down his neck. “So something went wrong.”

“We were attacked.”

“Same as Rycco, huh?”

A hard glint showed in Castor’s eyes when he clambered from his craft, and Luke felt a sweep of unreasoning suspicion. Han and Chewbacca both trusted the man; he had no cause — and no excuse save overstrung nerves — to doubt their instincts and fabricate a conspiracy from thin air.

“Professionals,” he said shortly. “Syndicate men, I suppose.”

“Yeah.” The little man sent a mournful glance up at the dissolving sky. “Who else?”

Luke stood back, a wordless invitation for Castor to join him on the porch. Soaked wood groaned and squished under his reluctant steps.

“This is bad news.” Castor punched both hands into his jacket’s pockets and turned to face the undaunted vitality of the wet jungle. “Really bad news.”

 _Worse_ , Luke thought, shooting him a sidelong glance. The sharp lines of Castor’s face had tightened with unconcealed worry.

“They get Han bad?” The question came out like a loathed duty.

“I’ve seen him in worse shape,” Luke answered with all the reassurance he could muster. “He’ll be fine in another day or two.”

Castor awarded him a forthright, contagious smile, and Luke returned it, thinking about their unlikely coalition. “Look,” he started, “I’m not sure I can make sense of what’s going on. Why would they kill Rycco? It couldn’t have been for the cargo.”

“Nope.” Castor spat through his teeth, hitting one of the puddles.

“And why attack Han?” Luke continued. “I overheard some talk at Dayton’s party. What a couple of pilots were saying about the syndicate putting an end to independent business, but—”

“That’s _exactly_ what they’re doing.” Castor swung around, making his point with acerbic temper. “Believe me, they didn’t like it much when Han cut himself loose and kept working as a free-lancer.”

“I just find it hard to believe they’re sending goon squads after every independent spacer.”

The thin mouth stretched to expose teeth, but there was no humor in Castor’s grin. “No, and they’ve got more effective means, too. Still, Han’s in a class of his own.”

No doubt about that, but — “I don’t know.” Luke shook his head. “What is it that makes Han more important to them than the next trader?”

“It’s just who he is,” Castor answered, slowing down for a moment, perhaps considering how to explain the obvious. “When Han hit the circuit here, there wasn’t a single smuggler who didn’t know about the part he’d played in the war. And they sure gave him a rough time for it.”

“Patented spacer mistrust of anyone turning legit?” Luke suggested, quoting to himself a dozen occasions when Han had sent abrasive comments after former confreres of the trade.

“The whole bag of tricks,” Castor agreed. “Someone heading _out_ of Fat City instead of in’s either a plant or a headcase. They swear they can smell respectability miles away...” He trailed off with a small, one-shouldered shrug. “Didn’t hold up very long. Maybe they thought Han was out for some weird kind of adventure vacation. Then eventually they realized he’s for real and flipped over backwards into hero worship. Well, sort of.” A wry grin lit briefly on Castor’s mouth. “He’s a very popular guy, and a lot of them look up to him ‘cause he’s such a stubborn sonovagun about running his own show, and just won’t bend to the syndicate.”

The picture he’d sketched came alive instantly and in color. Han Solo, defender of the liberty to engage in illegal trade, setting himself up for a collision with the dark agents of monopolizing greed. But was that enough to trigger such a vicious attack?

“You think they see him as some kind of figurehead?” Luke asked skeptically. “And if they manage to bring Han down, then the others will take it as a warning?”

“He’s aired his point of view a lot... and in public. Much like holy old Harad.”

Luke stared out into the fading drizzle. “But they don’t seem to have touched Harad.”

“The operative word is _yet_ ,” Castor interjected. “They’re not like your average bureaucrats. To them, this is about a whole lot more than credits and the number of hands they grease. They’re pulling the strings, and _everyone_ ’s supposed to jump. If you don’t, you can bet your ass they’ll take offense.”

Only half-listening, Luke nodded, mind drifting uncertainly across the gaps in their reasoning. If the hazards were that tangible, surely Han must have realized...

Castor leaned forward and stuck his head out from beneath the roof. “Stopped raining,” he observed and sucked a long breath in through his teeth. “Guess I’ll head back to my own condo then. Tell Han to watch his back.”

“He shouldn’t need anyone to tell him that.”

“Yeah.” A dark eyebrow arched meaningfully, then Castor walked down the steps and climbed into his glider. “You need anything, just give me a shout, okay?” he called over the engine’s sputter. “Meantime, I’ll put my ear to the ground.”

Watching him leave, Luke curled his fingers around the moist wood of the porch railing, his mind brushing on diffuse doubts only to veer off again. All those questions would have to wait another day.

* * *

He spent a restless night of intermittent sleep, moving from one room to the next as if tranquility were a quarry to be stalked. Until the next jag of absurdly transparent nightmares snapped him back into a high-strung state of alarm. Gunfire shattered the windows, and faceless assassins swarmed through the house. When Luke finally got up and dressed, distant lightning flickered above a gray rim of morning. Chewbacca, who’d kept his watch in a hammock on the porch, didn’t look like he’d slept much either.

A little while later, they had their hands full of persuading a disgruntled Han to stay in bed and endure the itch of his dressings a little longer. Luke compromised by removing the bacta strips from his face, carefully washing the flaky residue off paling bruises. There was a faint tremor in his hand that he couldn’t stop, though he kept his touch deft and impersonal. Han settled down again with a look that could have been remorse. Exhaustion lined his face.

After a prolonged breakfast that served mostly to defuse their uneasiness, Chewbacca headed out towards the Falcon where the newly-mended compensator awaited finishing touches. On impulse, Luke almost returned to Han’s bedroom, but his presence would most likely lead to another argument about the doctor’s orders. He paused in the lounge and felt again the tightening of his shoulders, the clenching of his jaw. Something in him hovered between impatience and alarm, waiting for a random spark to fire into... what? Deliberately, he turned his mind away from it.

Settling cross-legged on the veranda, Luke went through his meditation exercises, but the sun had climbed over the jungle’s edge and steamed the last night’s rainfall up into windless air. Increasingly hot and bothered, he pulled his shirt over his head and watched the surreptitious movements of spider-legged water-skaters on the surface of the lagoon. They switched places without transition. Poised on the trembling skin of water one moment, they disappeared the next and rematerialized in another spot, their leaps too abrupt to predict.

Luke leaned back on his elbows. He’d have to contact Intell soon. A number of decisions were waiting to be made, suspended around him like wisps of smoke in the stagnant air. He couldn’t reasonably stay much longer.

The sound of his name brought him around with a quick, overwrought motion.

On bare feet, Han had padded into the lounge and tugged at the dressings that crisscrossed his chest. “Can we take ‘em off now?” he asked with a long-suffering look. “That goddamn itch’s startin’ to drive me up the walls.”

A healthier color had returned to his face, the play of light and shadow concealing the tracks of violence. For an endless stretch of seconds, Luke gave in to indulgence, the need to look at him, letting the jostle of nightmares come undone.

“Yeah, I guess we can,” he said eventually. “Let’s go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up.”

He worked methodically, pulling the clingstrips off first while Han tried not to fidget. By the time Luke removed the shrunk bacta paks, his hands lingered over warm skin, drawing a fleeting kind of balance from the touch.

“Mmm...” Han arched his shoulders slightly. “Feels good, the way you do that.”

“Don’t move.” Luke took down the final layer and tossed the dressings into the bin, consciously yielding to the seduction of Han’s hooded glance when he looked up. His fingers edged their way across once-broken ribs and sheltered a steady indraw of breath.

“I’ll live,” Han said dryly, but his hand reached to cover Luke’s for a moment, holding it there. “Guess I owe you—”

“Just forget it,” Luke cut in, with a vague attempt at humor. “With our kind of track record, it’s no use trying to keep count of the scores.”

They’d moved from gratitude to casual acknowledgment a long time ago, and that routine offered something like a safe foothold right now.

“If you say so.” Han quirked a grin at him and turned, bending over the sink to splash cold water against his torso. Sunlight slanted in a broad stripe across the back of his neck, his spine and shoulder blade, gentle shadows rippling with every motion.

It hurt to look at him.

Luke retreated a step, into a corner formed by bare white walls. “Are you going to be safe here?” he asked with due matter-of-factness. “They must know where you live.”

Han didn’t quite succeed at suppressing a brief start. “Yeah, they know,” he muttered, straightening slowly. “But for the time being, they’ll sit back ‘n wait for me to react.”

“You must have guessed that Rycco’s death was meant as a warning.” Luke folded his arms over the rising anger that burned on oxygen with each breath he drew.

Beading water drops glittered on Han’s chest when he reached for a towel, his movements suddenly stiff with discomfort. He shrugged. “I couldn’t discount the possibility.”

“They could’ve killed you!” Luke flared.

“I know.”

It took no more than that, and the gathering anger turned cold in his chest. “You still work for them,” Luke said. “Don’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?” A guarded look came over Han’s face, and his patience ran out abruptly. “Is _this_ the life you wanted? The freedom you needed so bad that you turned your back on everything else?”

“Not exactly.” Han let the towel drop to the floor and watched him from narrowed eyes.

Luke shook his head. “Do you know how hard I tried to understand? And I thought I owed it to you — that I shouldn’t hold you back, because you have a right to lead your own life. And then you turn around and sign up with a bunch of slavers and blackmailers!”

“Hold it right there,” Han growled. “I didn’t sign up. Why d’you think I took all the trouble to pass information along to Intell?”

“To ease your conscience, maybe,” Luke shot back. He could almost watch his own temper climb, gaining critical mass. “You walked out when we _needed_ you.”

“That’s a whole load of crap, and you know it!” Han snapped. “You’ve used that with me for years, and maybe you had a point when it was still the Rebellion, but the New Republic’s something else. One more general, one more pilot on their payroll — what the heck, it’s all the same to them!”

“You’re not just anybody.” Luke paused for a quick breath. “And _I_ needed you to stay.” 

A small start troubled the defensive irritation on Han’s face. “You never said that. Not a word.”

“No. But don’t tell me it would’ve made a difference. You would’ve left anyway.” Luke stormed from the bathroom, from suddenly unbearable silence, before the look in Han’s eyes could turn into words.

He needed time to himself, to sort through this own reactions, but the forces that drove his disappointment still gathered momentum. Broad, humid daylight flooded the lounge through the open veranda doors, slid in muted patterns across the walls and ceiling, and he couldn’t think past the violent protest that kept circling one sore spot.

 _You left when we needed you_.  
_Where does that come from?_

He’d never blamed Han for leaving, not that he knew, but it seemed that his gut response was finally hitting home. After all of seven months. It took him another moment to realize that Han had followed him from the bathroom.

“I don’t know,” Han said, a delayed reply to the question he hadn’t asked. “I don’t know if I would’ve stayed.”

There was a slight roughness in his voice, a sober honesty that disarmed Luke at once and completely. Not turning, he lifted his shoulders to signal that he’d heard, enveloped in brightness and floating dust motes, and felt his anger evaporate.

After several moments, Han moved again to stand close behind him. One arm circling Luke’s midriff, a tentative offer. He could feel the brush of Han’s body heat against the bare skin of his back. The breath stirring his hair. Conflicting impulses were operating simultaneously and at full force inside him.

“Come on, Luke, what is it, really?” Han’s voice lowered, reaching again for the old, easy closeness.

“Nothing.”

 _I’m in love with you_.

A swift jolt passed through him, and he turned the words over, tried to measure the feeling against memory. Had he ever felt this breathless, unconditional longing before, this simple gladness of being with someone? Just words, Luke told himself, dry shells that couldn’t hold anything, conveyed nothing. And yet, his only lead to a truth buried at the root of countless memories, a secret he’d kept from himself. Something vital in him that moved so strongly towards Han. Instant reaction washed through him, with unknown potency, as if he’d get drunk on nothing but sensation.

“I don’t know,” Han repeated, “but the point is, you didn’t say it. Sure, we argued a lot, but you never once told me you don’t want me to go.”

“Looks like I couldn’t.” He leaned back, and Han’s arm tightened over his stomach, the slight pressure enough to send a quick, electric pang through his gut.

_For how long—? Why did I never realize?_

For another second or two, he lingered within amazement and recognition, a lightheaded state of awareness, then he took a step forward, dislodging Han’s hold on him as gently as he could. Still in free fall, but there were too many things he had to know, and too much depended on the answers.

“You know,” Han said thoughtfully when Luke faced him again, “this is the first time I’ve seen you blow up for... well, longer than I can remember.”

And there were ironclad reasons for it, too.

“I didn’t mean for things to come out this way,” Luke said, carefully selecting his words. “There’s just a lot that I thought I understood, and now...” He pushed a hand through his hair, still under a strange, irresistible spell when he felt Han watch him, and tried to backtrack, impose order on his thoughts. “You didn’t tell me you suspected that the syndicate was behind Rycco’s death.”

“’Cause I couldn’t be sure,” Han returned. “Rycco was an uptight kind of guy. He might’ve been on to something, or simply got on somebody’s bad side.” A brief gesture put an end to speculation. “Either way, I didn’t think they’d come for me too. Not that fast anyway. If I’d expected _that_ , I’d never’ve asked you along.”

“I’ve learned to take care of myself, you know.”

“Aw, come on, you know what I mean!” Han’s expression shaded over into familiar, gruff protectiveness, but the taut lines around his mouth betrayed long-term pressure. Unresolved guilt, or determination, or the accumulated weight of second thoughts.

“You have to trust me.”

“It’s not that, believe me.” Han grimaced. “Well, maybe it is...”

“Start at the beginning,” Luke suggested. “And maybe you should sit down...”

“I’m _fine_.” Han rolled his eyes and walked over to the couch all the same. Bending stiffly at the waist, he settled with a wariness that suggested unadmitted aches.

Luke pulled up a chair for himself, establishing a secure distance like a measure of his own confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he repeated, hoping that he’d purged all the reproach from it this time.

“You know how it is, Luke.” Settling back, Han met his question with a straightforward look. “You wake up one morning in the middle of a life that doesn’t really feel like anything you’d thought it’d be, and you ask yourself, how the hell did I get here?” He shrugged. “And the answer’s never simple. Lots of small choices and steps you took without thinking, but that doesn’t make you feel any better about it in retrospect.”

He turned his face towards the veranda doors, and the light that reflected off the lagoon moved over his profile.

“It was bad luck, combined with one wrong decision,” he said roughly. “I’d only just bought the second freighter when the Falcon’s motivator gave out, and you know what it takes to rebuild the entire hyperdrive matrix. Plus, somebody else’d just snatched a profitable deal from under my nose. It was either resell the freighter or take up a loan.”

“And you decided to borrow the money,” Luke concluded, pausing only until Han gave a clipped nod. “You could’ve asked me, or Leia... or even Lando. And instead you went to some loan shark?”

“Come off it, it’s not like I’d never done that before,” Han grumbled. “I’ve hocked pretty much everything I own at one time or another, and this wasn’t any different. The guy had a reputation for upfront deals, too. No point in making things more complicated than they had to be.” But the brief tightening of his jawline betrayed the real reason, the stubborn pride that wouldn’t let him acknowledge defeat, not even a minor slump.

 _And more than anything, you had to prove your independence_ , Luke thought, fending off the bleakness that stole through him.

“And then it turned out that this creditor worked for the syndicate?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know that for sure.” Han flung both arms out along the backrest of the couch. “Fact is, somebody approached me, waving the IOU, and offered me a choice between paying back the whole pile at once or working for a company that just happened to need good pilots.”

“So that’s what you did.”

“Yeah.” Han shot him a hard look. “I told the guy I don’t do slaves, and we had a deal. Getting hired wasn’t all that easy at the time, and I’d never even heard about the syndicate.” His belligerence wavered and made way for grudging afterthoughts. “Didn’t take me too long though, to figure out what kind of outfit I’d thrown in with.”

Luke relaxed a little as facts assembled into a tangible scenario. “How much do you still owe them?”

“Not a single credit of that goddamn loan.” Every word carried an angry charge, and Han’s hand twitched on the backrest, almost balling into a fist. “I paid them back to the last penny, and when they asked me to stay anyway, I told ‘em no thanks.”

“And they didn’t like it.”

“Not one bit,” Han agreed abrasively. “But when they got it through their heads that flexin’ muscles won’t work with me, they finally backed off. And they made it look convincing, too. Cut down their demands to one more cargo run, ‘cause they hadn’t hired a replacement yet, and I’d be home free. Damn that I didn’t see it coming...”

“What happened?” Luke pressed his back into the chair, as if premonition had turned into a fist driving hard against his stomach.

“It was a setup from the word go,” Han said sardonically. “Still haven’t figured out all the details, but they got me mixed up with a bombing on an orbital transfer station. We were shipping software updates for weather satellites — fancy, high-priced stuff — and two consultants came along as passengers. That’s what I was told, anyway.” He rubbed at his chin, unvoiced curses smoldering in his eyes. “I don’t think they planned it all just to put the shake on me, that was probably just an added bonus. I was still going through the customs checks when a detonator blew in one of the office segments. And our passengers’d conveniently disappeared.” His glance tracked across the wall and cut sidelong at the sun-drenched tableau beyond the veranda. “It was just a matter of time ‘til security decided we’d been in on it all along, so Chewie and I bailed out. Had to leave the cargo behind, too.”

“Which was just what the syndicate needed to put pressure on you,” Luke said before he could stop himself.

“Yes, damnit, I _know_ that!” Han snapped, but the flash of temper collapsed within moments. “The bottom line is, I was back to owing them for the lost cargo, and they got out the thumb screws this time. All they gotta do is blow the whistle on me! If this thing goes to court, I won’t see daylight for a long time to come.”

Luke shook his head. “You were tricked into participation. And all you’ve done for the Alliance must count for something, too.”

“Not when they find out that I used to work for the syndicate on a regular basis. That means guilty by association.” Han let his head fall back to send a vexed stare up at the ceiling. “Sixteen people died that day, Luke. Can’t blame the authorities for wanting to nail someone. Anyone.”

Luke caught back several pointless objections. The humidity wafting in from the jungle had become stifling and crawled stickily on his skin. After another moment, Han sat up straight and met his eyes, inviting the next question.

“So you went back to working for the syndicate?”

“Hell, no!” A crooked grin disrupted the pent-up frustration. “What d’you take me for? I told them to go hang. I figured if they want me _that_ bad, I’m no use to them locked away in some backwater slammer. I lost the cargo, so I’m paying off my debts, but that’s where I’m drawing the line.”

Another stirring of anger wound its way into Luke’s gut as he stared back at Han, incredulous and alarmed. “You thought you could just out-stubborn them? Is that why Chewie’s mad at you?”

“Yeah. He keeps saying we should either go against them full throttle or get the hell out of here.”

“After what happened on Nam Korlis, I think I agree with him.”

Han spread his hands in a vague gesture of surrender. “I miscalculated. I thought they’d lay off once they realize they can’t manipulate me any more than buy me. What’d they want conscripts for anyway?”

“Yes,” Luke said softly, “that’s the real question, isn’t it? Why are they so bent on having you work for them?”

“Must be my reputation,” Han countered with instant sarcasm. “And they obviously can’t take no for an answer. Looks like somebody’s got a very delicate ego.”

“I don’t know...” Luke rummaged through his own suspicions, the things Castor had told him, but nothing conclusive leapt to the fore. “Is that really all there is to it? Ego trips and greed?”

“Can’t think of anything else.” Han rose from the couch and wandered over to the veranda doors. “Chewie’s right,” he said in a lowered voice, leaning against the jamb. “It’s a simple choice, and I’m not letting go without a fight. You can contact Intell and tell them I’m in.”

 _Chances are I’ll lose everything I’ve got here_ , Luke recalled with a small pang. He joined Han by the door, where the languid dance of light on the water suggested a different mood, wishing he could argue, question Han’s logic and frame a plan free of hazards.

“That gang on Nam Korlis,” Han started in afterthought. “You think they could’ve recognized you?” He gestured uneasily. “’Cause that’d blow my cover right away.”

Luke shook his head. “Don’t worry, they won’t even recall I was there.” The memory pulled through him, a wild rush that streamed the Force into mind-blinding missiles. “All they’ll remember is that they accomplished their mission.”

“Neat.” Wry amusement bent Han’s mouth.

Luke’s throat tightened. _I don’t want you to go_. It wouldn’t make a difference if he said it this time. And he’d come here intending to procure this decision, to prevent a political crisis and the kind of unstructured, localized war that dragged on forever and piled up calamities in its wake. But that narrow track of reasoning no longer reached through to his heart.

“Han, I—” A hand on his shoulder stopped him, and he changed his confession to, “We can take them down.”

“Yeah, maybe.” A smile started in one corner of Han’s mouth, distracted and private, as if his thoughts had already taken a different turn.

It shouldn’t affect him like this, Luke told himself, but his heart hammered all the same when Han lifted a speculative glance at him that settled on his mouth. Memory shot up inside him, of the last time they’d kissed, the sudden urgency of Han’s lips on his own and the pressure of darkness around them.

He reached up a hand, curving it around Han’s neck, and with the release of a long breath, Han’s mouth swept down on his own, their arms tightening around each other in thoughtless complicity.

Luke caught back a gasp as the kiss deepened and Han pulled him up closer, flush against the length of his body. The force of feeling like a thin, electric layer beneath his skin, a carrier wave spreading each sensation through him. Drawn out with every movement of Han’s lips and tongue against his own, a hypnotic exchange that lasted until lightheaded pleasure coursed freely through him.

Released into breathing, it took Luke several moments to notice anything else. Like the subliminal strain that tightened the contours of Han’s face. His fingers moved over the pale shadow of a bruise on Han’s neck.

“You look tired. Let me take you back to bed.”

“Sounds good to me.” The look Han gave him was unmistakable, dark and suggestive with a distant spark of laughter.

“That’s _not_ what I meant,” Luke said, but the hoarse note in his voice questioned him instantly.

“I don’t believe you.” Han leaned closer again, the sparkle promising to catch fire. “But let’s go to bed anyway.”

His protest was nominal when Luke motioned him back against the sheets, careful not to touch the spots of recent bruising. The shutters were still half drawn across the open window, slatting thin white lines across Han’s body that molded his ribcage and the muscles over his stomach.

Luke sat down on the edge of the mattress, already embracing him in his mind, the sharp sensation of wanting focused with the clarity of touch. Between his passage from the bedroom to the lounge and back again, he’d crossed a line that made it impossible to recall the absence of this awareness. That deep, aching joy in his chest.

“What do you think,” he started, the question gaining abrupt priority, “how long ‘til they contact you?”

“Couple of days maybe, once I put a call through to them.” Deliberation set a tight line between Han’s brows, but there was no trace of surprise at his question. “They’ll figure I’m bound to change my mind again if they give me too much time to think it over.”

A couple of days. Luke nodded, tasting only the finality in those words, the gridlock that imposed itself on every wishful thought.

Han’s fingers meandered lazily over his back, taking slow turns around the bumps of his spine. “Come here, and don’t tell me I should get a rest, ‘cause I won’t.” Amusement colored his tone again. “And it’s all your fault...”

“Really.” Luke slid down next to him, into an easy embrace that held concerns and disappointment at bay.

“Ask,” Han said dryly, while the fingers of one hand brushed up into Luke’s hair. “I can practically hear you think.”

“I’ve already asked you before.” Indicating a shrug, he felt Han’s palm move against his shoulder. “What did you think you’d find here?”

“Honest deals,” Han returned with undisguised self-derision. “I thought I’d do better out here, where everybody’s taking care of themselves and protecting their own interests without any kind of pretense. Most people don’t care, Luke.” His tone had changed, admitting something that was almost affection. “Most people are gonna lock their doors or blast off at the first sign of trouble instead of gettin’ involved. And the handful who’ll go out of their way for somebody else don’t usually live very long.”

“What about us?” Luke raised his head to catch the reflexive denial in Han’s eyes. “We’ve done well at surviving so far.”

“Whatever you think, I’m not like that.”

“And that’s what you were going to prove?”

Instead of answering, Han muttered a favorite Corellian curse and kissed him hard. Luke tilted his head, breath catching at the caress of Han’s tongue, licking at his mouth before dipping back inside, the way Han held his face between his hands. Bare chests touching, matching pulsebeats in a syncopated rhythm. All of it filling his senses, and the close, consummate contact seemed to come easier each time.

Alien as water, familiar like breathing.

Sensations rolling in waves towards an uncertain shore, mingling and dividing in seamless patterns. Every muscle and nerve in his body followed their codes, urging him closer against Han in a slow, straining rhythm while the kiss lingered, deep and breathtaking.

“I should’ve told you before.” Han pulled back just enough to give him a look of stark sobriety. “Whatever it is that you see in me—”

“You.” Luke drew a short, startled breath. “You really thought this could change anything?”

“Guess I know better now.”

The serious gaze softened with unaccountable feelings, and Han’s arms locked hard around his back for a moment, then relaxed again. Like an unscrambled signal, Luke felt the impulse behind that strong grip, the longing to hold on, and the same impossible desire rose through him, a brilliant tide.

Maybe he should warn Han about the way he felt, but this came so much easier, the only way to forget. And their time together was already running out.

“You should see your eyes now,” Han murmured and kissed him again, lips roaming everywhere from cheekbone to jaw and back to Luke’s lower lip. Silky brushes that commanded him to stillness under the gentle ferocity of Han’s mouth, unsettled by the way he had opened himself, enduring the sear of memories that never left him entirely. A division set into his mind that disconnected Endor from every other place, every other junction in his life.

The pressure eased when his hand rose and started to drift over Han’s chest, skimming around barely perceptible bruises, like a darker skin tone, disguised by the patterned lighting. Fingertips teasing the nipples with touches that left just as much to imagination, though he felt Han’s skin crawl beneath them and his own breath went deeper into his chest. Every thought flowed smoothly into creating pleasure, detached from tomorrow, from the strangeness within himself, like sand rippling down a dune’s slipface. Dissolved into the restless craving that pooled in his belly and contracted with every heartbeat. His mouth shifted to a pulse point just below Han’s jaw. Impatiently, Han pressed back into him, his trapped erection pushing against Luke’s thigh.

“Lie still,” Luke said into the curve of his neck.

“Yeah, easy for you to say.” Han mocked his own reactions with a slight grin. “Can I help it if you turn me on?”

Luke swallowed, almost ready to laugh at himself and the way those words could set off a heated tingle in his groin, a lighter charge joining the tension that built inside him. He bent his head again to start a slow rain of kisses down from the collarbone, one hand tracing circles around each nipple in turn while the other moved to Han’s belt, unfastened his pants. Breathing on skin, surrounded by the mixed scents of tropical vegetation and Han, while the filtered sunlight ran slender arrows over his back.

He paused when Han lifted his hips in wordless invitation to undress him. Easing off, Luke took his time about it, stretching precious, borrowed minutes to learn as much as he could with his eyes and mouth and fingers, raking tenderness across the rangy elegance of Han’s body. One hand circled its way down the flat stomach, skated across the hip and skipped to the lean thighs. As if his touch could become part of the countless journeys, all the places Han had traveled, memories that lay dormant under his skin and stirred with each turn of sleep. A faint flush darkened Han’s face, and stray sunlight glittered in his eyes.

Braced on his elbows, Luke placed his mouth against the groove where the lowest ribs joined the breastbone, where each uneven breath became a caress against his lips. His eyes open to the texture of skin beneath the white-and-tawny pattern of the shutters. Incandescent noon pressed up against the window and slid over his back in conjunction with Han’s hands, competing with the focused heat of Han’s cock trapped under his chest. He licked a path down from the navel, across the spring of dark curls, his fingers circling the base of the shaft with gentle pressure. Skin like velvet against his cheek, the delicate tissue stretched over the pulse of blood, the solid force of it. Tracing the fine grain, he brushed his lips up and down the length, gathered up a first taste with his tongue. A half-stifled jolt went through Han’s body, forcing its way out in a rough gasp, and Luke felt the same shockpulse refract in his bloodstream.

Sliding downward, he took hold of the lean hips and opened his mouth to the warm, salty taste, closing himself around it with nothing but instinct and determination. Han shuddered, and with the throb of hard flesh against his tongue, a hard-wired loop of wanting uncoiled in Luke’s belly. He had to pull back for breath and tried a more comfortable angle, hand moving in tandem with his mouth. Each strong pulse rushed back through him with pangs of savage pleasure, his fingers reading the tremors that shot through Han’s legs, the rhythmic tensing of muscles under the impact of arousal. Each sensation thickened the pressure in his groin as he worked out a rhythm, steadily increasing his tempo until he felt Han tremble with the effort not to thrust blindly.

“Luke...” His name came out bitten off, overtaken by a ragged gasp. “Come on, turn around... this is gettin’ pretty one-sided.” When he looked up, Han added, “And take those goddamn clothes off.”

All too conscious of Han’s eyes on him, Luke stripped, dropping pants and briefs down on the discarded pile of clothing. Midday heat pricked his skin with white needles while the quiet of the room enhanced every rustle of cloth, the rush of his own breathing. Han shifted to lie on his side, gliding a hand up Luke’s thigh as he changed position.

Out of nowhere, an incongruous memory formed — an early morning on Tatooine, some fifteen years ago, materializing in such instantaneous detail he could almost hear the ventilator’s tinny rattle as it labored to cool his bedroom. He’d slept with his head at the foot of the bed, and when Aunt Beru pulled back the covers to wake him, she’d pinched his toes. The memory passed over him with a feeling of safety and wide restless awakeness stirred by the harsh scents from the desert. A start of nervous laughter fluttered in his chest.

He pressed his face against Han’s side and murmured, “I’m glad to be here.”

He didn’t catch words in the muttered reply, the warm breath fanning over his belly too much of a distraction, loosening a delicious shiver that ran down his legs. A final moment of awkwardness passed with the first teasing stroke of Han’s fingers across his erection, snapping off electric sparks. Leaning forward into the fuzzy twilight of closed lids, Luke cupped the warm fullness between Han’s legs and placed his mouth over the stiff length, seeking the taste of him. His perceptions went into a spin when Han took hold of him in turn, the coolness of his lips replaced by the deeper warmth of his mouth, the pressing swirls of his tongue. Starting flashfires that wrung moans from Luke’s throat as he struggled for balance between the heady pleasure and the rhythm of his own movements, the counterpoise of desire. Muffled, throaty sounds passed between them, shooting visual echoes through skin and nerve.

Within his mind, Luke could see Han and himself, bodies aligned in an enclosed space of bright chills, shaped into a conduit of raw pleasure, of shared need and trust. Awareness sliding in and out of the climbing cadence — until Han released him with a harsh groan, hips straining against the brace of Luke’s forearm, his fingers bruising Luke’s thigh with unconscious force as he bucked and thrust blindly. A scalding frost etched along his nerves with the sharp, hot taste that filled his mouth and throat, all his senses drawn into the slipstream of Han’s climax.

He didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want to leave this precipice and fall, but wanton need settled its rhythms into his body when Han’s mouth captured him again, the heat of the room pounding through him.

Strong hands traveled up his inner thighs, traced the curve of his buttocks, until the tip of Han’s index finger slid in deeper along sweat-slickened skin. Centered on a defenseless nerve, circling and probing, then thrusting gently — and the thrill of it was more than he could take. His body clenched around the intrusion, the strange energy pulsing between them. _In me_.

He froze, breathless, his head thrown back. Flung to a high crest in moments, a fine edge that shattered into countless fragments and glittered through him like snowfall. Aware of nothing except Han’s mouth caressing him until the hard tremors ceased.

Stretched out on his back, Luke recaptured a sense of reality like a shell closing slowly around him. Sunlight lay in unmoving waves against the ceiling, and Han was shifting on the bed, draping an arm across his waist. His mouth nuzzling heated skin from Luke’s shoulder to his neck.

“You okay?” Luke asked, out of breath, surprised by the sound of his own voice. So distant. Ordinary.

“Never been better.” Han shot him an exasperated look, a surface effort that passed quickly. “You’re — this is...” He gave up with a flustered gesture, his voice growing husky again. “Stop worrying about me, okay?”

 _But this will soon be over_ , Luke thought, _no matter what we do_.

Han leaned across, tipping his chin up into a kiss that feathered against his mouth like a mere breath. A trembling response caught in Luke’s chest, snapped strings recalling a closeness that left nothing unmoved or untouched. He wrapped both arms around Han and hugged too hard, freezing in mid-motion. Suddenly mindful of recently broken ribs, the jagged edges of recollection. Flat silhouettes cut out of the night, crowding his vision and mind.

 _I could have lost you_.

He looked back into Han’s eyes, the different shades of hazel brought out by every change of lighting. Brown to green flecked with hints of gold, the colors of a midsummer forest. More words came before he could stop to consider.

“I could have spared you more—”

“Yeah, and I could be _dead_ if you hadn’t been there,” Han stopped him, a serious rebuke in his voice. “Whatever you do, don’t go blaming yourself. That’s absurd.”

“No, it’s not. There’s more that I could have done, and sooner.”

“You got caught in a stun web,” Han countered. “Anyone else would’ve been out cold for _hours_. And besides...” He breathed in deeply, his glance sliding past Luke. “Look, this is gonna sound a little crazy, but I could see you. I was as close to zonked as it gets, and I could still see you standing there in the middle of the street, pointing your gun at them.”

 _Impossible_. Luke didn’t say it, just swallowed around the word. Something in him leapt to hazardous conclusions, as if the thready connection he’d fashioned could really work both ways.

“There’s something else,” Han suggested, watching him.

He nodded shortly and ran his fingers up into the thick brown hair. “Yes, but... Some other time. Not now.”

* * *

From the other side of the lagoon, the house looked stranded and skeletal, too much of it unfinished, yet full of air and light. A rugged survivor crouching in the gray-green profusion, poised to defend a hopeless position.

Luke sat down on a moss-grown bank, only a hand’s breadth away from the water. Its surface mirrored an overcast sky in muddy silver, riddled with drifting leaves. Three days had passed since Han had sent a message through guarded channels, and they hadn’t mentioned it again while they waited, sharing days and nights like emergency rations. Perhaps today, when Han returned from the settlement, there would be news.

Luke took off his boots and socks to feel the moss under his feet. The house was growing a new skin of lichen that climbed up the wooden pilings and wreathed them in pale turquoise ornaments. Humid shimmers on the air reflected this morning’s rainfall, but his mind skipped several hours and landed within minutes of dawn. A silky gray borderzone where they’d made love, still entangled in the slippery residue of dreams. Not a single word spilling out through their joined breathing.

Made love. He wasn’t sure if Han thought of it in these terms, but no other words he could think of matched the slow ache and burn that consumed him. And each time it left him more aware of a tight, empty place inside him.

Beside his trained sense that responded to the Force, an active capacity had been left unattended. More than the soft resonance he shared with Leia, something entirely his own, a possibility that roused at Han’s touch. Like a beam of light switching on in a dusty room. Something he hadn’t felt since —

Surface thoughts drained away as Luke sank into a half-waking state of concentration and felt his breathing change, the way he’d breathe in a heavier atmosphere. Without effort, he retrieved the smells of Dagobah, the whisper of dry leaves, the lap of water against rich, humid soil, and through it, the staccato beats of his own heart as alien sensations poured into his mind. The sound of Yoda’s voice retreated, but the vision caught like lightning, like a barbed hook in his flesh and pulled —

 _Was that it, was that what betrayed them — why Vader took Han and tortured him, because he could trace this connection?_ Frantic denial shook him again, wrenched muscles from quiescence to combat alert in the space of a heartbeat.

 _I can’t let it happen I can’t_  
... _now your feelings have betrayed_ —

No. He flinched from the taunting voice that pierced his concentration, lashing out from a different recess of the past. Vader had traced only Leia through him, not Han. He turned back to Yoda, a hunched figure in the mists, unyielding in his isolation. _Is that why? Did you keep me in ignorance of all that I could have to limit the damage it would do — the damage I could do to myself? Or was it that you wanted nothing to distract me from killing my own father?_ But of course there was no answer.

The sound of his own rough breathing guided Luke back to awareness, to a dizzy overlap of realities, until the swamps of Dagobah and the quiet lagoon slid apart. Only the rasp of crickets in the undergrowth trailed a thin echo that didn’t belong to this time and place. Hunched over, he examined his own anger — the pointless resentment directed at someone who’d moved beyond his reach long ago — and released it.

There was movement in the house now, a step he recognized before Han opened the veranda doors, and daylight flashed on the glass like molten lead.

“Hey!” It took Han only a moment to locate him on the far bank. He threw his weight against the incomplete railing and grinned at the immediate creak of protest. “How’d you get there?”

“I took a walk and here’s where I ended up,” Luke called, straightening his back. He felt stiff as if he’d been sitting on the bank much longer than he recalled.

“Swimming across would’ve been easier.” Han tilted his head at the sky. “Looks like we’re in for another shower. Monsoon season’s getting closer.”

“I’d noticed,” Luke said, not bothering to raise his voice as he pushed to his feet.

“Stay right where you are!” Han was yanking his boots off, dropped his clothes left and right, then launched himself into the lagoon.

White spray fanned up around his body, his skin dark in the sodden light, against the dulled silver of the water. Resolute armstrokes churned a line of white through the green quiet, then Han pulled himself up on the bank, all sparkling wet skin and smooth motion. The water he shook out of his hair sprayed against Luke’s neck and chest.

“C’mon, admit it, you’re still uneasy around that much water.” Up close, Han’s wide grin glittered from his shadowed face, and before Luke could reply, a wet hand took hold of his jaw and cool lips crushed against his own in a quick, hard kiss.

“Any news?” Luke managed after he’d hauled some oxygen into his lungs.

Han eased down next to him and slicked his hair back from his face, all too obviously delaying his reply.

So that was it. Luke pulled up his knees and knew he should have guessed by the vehemence in that kiss, or the way Han had insisted on joining him here, in a green pocket of privacy. “They got in touch then?”

“Yeah.” Han’s mouth twitched with annoyance, then firmed again. “I’m supposed to meet one of their no-name puppeteers on Nam Korlis tomorrow.”

“Nam Korlis,” Luke echoed, if only to stop himself from repeating _tomorrow_. The one word that could kick-start another flare of denial. He kept his eyes straight ahead, averted from the seduction of glistening skin and sleek muscle. “They’re wasting no opportunity to bring the message home, are they?”

Han snorted. “Like my backbone’s gonna turn to jelly the moment I get there!”

“It’s going to make things easier, if they underestimate you like that,” Luke pointed out, restricting his thoughts to all things reasonable and necessary. “If they believe you’ve decided it’s not worth trying to resist.”

“That might be the hardest part.” A surly grin twisted Han’s mouth. He plucked at the shaggy moss, pulling a short strand loose.

“I’ll come along,” Luke said after a moment’s reflection. “I need to know what exactly the deal is, before I return to Corellia. What kind of place’ve they picked for this meeting?”

“An uptown cantina.” Han shrugged. “Most probably crowded too, by the middle of the day. That might make it difficult for you to get close enough to listen.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that I won’t be noticed.”

“I keep forgettin’ you can do that.” Han leaned back and arched his neck. Some of the tension dissolved gradually, as if by force of will. “Listen... there’s something else. Just a small detail that came back to me. Might not mean anything, but I’d forgotten all about it.” He paused, dangling his feet in the water. “Remember that service on Nam Korlis? The fraternity crackpots?”

“What about them?”

“There was a star chart under the roof. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first.” Han’s eyes narrowed as if conjuring the sight. “’Til it hit me that it wasn’t a navigator’s chart. It’s the view of the night-sky you get on Corellia when you’re close to the equator."

Luke shook his head. “But why Corellia? That’s odd.”

“Well, maybe they just used it as a decoration of sorts,” Han speculated, “and didn’t particularly care what it represents. Holos that size aren’t bought for a song. It’s possible they got their hands on this one in some sell-out or other.”

“I don’t know. There didn’t seem to be any random elements to the ceremony otherwise.”

“And—?”

Luke met the sharp glance with frank puzzlement, momentarily distracted by the shimmers of moisture on Han’s shoulder and chest, daylight playing slender fingers over his body. “And what?”

“I got the impression that something about it caught your attention,” Han elaborated. “Like you’d, uh, sensed something peculiar.”

“That’s true.” Luke pulled up his shoulders in abridged apology. “I could feel a movement in the Force. Like a... a fever, but don’t ask me what that means. They were in a collective trance. Maybe that’s what caused it.”

“So you can’t always tell, huh?” Han slipped him a sharp look. “The Force hasn’t turned you into some almighty, all-knowing Jedi master after all.”

“Of course not!” Baffled, Luke shook his head. “And it never will. But why—”

“’Cause you sometimes act as if that’s what you should be,” Han cut in. He pulled up one leg and draped his arm across his knee, arranging himself in a posture of finite patience. “Like that ambush. They had you hogtied in a stun net that could’ve zapped a Wookiee, and you got rid of it anyway. More than good enough for the average human, if you ask me.”

“But I should have accomplished that much within moments.” Luke’s back stiffened as if a wire had been pulled taut between his shoulder blades. “If I’d been able to concentrate properly. Only I wasn’t.”

“Why not?” Han asked so gently that Luke could feel the sound slide against his skin, a ripple of words.

“It’s exactly what Vader and Palpatine used against me,” he said haltingly. “My own feelings for the people close to me. The fact that I care too much. That I can’t just stand by and watch and let it happen...”

“You’d be a _droid_ if you could.”

Luke smiled thinly. “I think even droids feel more than that. I can’t detach myself. It just isn’t in me... But it’s dangerous, because I have the Force, and the power to twist it.”

“But they couldn’t turn you,” Han said with sudden violence.

Luke glanced away for a moment, then looked back to observe the impact of truth. “I turned, Han. Only for a few moments, but I turned. And I nearly killed my own father.”

A rough, near soundless curse went up into the fragrant air, and it was Han’s turn to avert his face. “Damn the bastards for pushing you that far.”

“Yes, they pushed,” Luke said with a strange new sobriety. “And they also taught me a lesson. All I can do is divide my anger from reaching into the Force. It’s impossible not to feel it, but I can’t use it to achieve what I want... it reflects back into the Force. Darkens it.” He crossed his arms and let his glance drift across all the vibrant shades of green, leaf and water and clotted vines. “I have to keep these things separate, that’s all. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

“It doesn’t,” Han assured him caustically. “Sounds more like splitting yourself in two.”

“It’s not _that_ bad.” Now that the essence of his conflict had been dragged into the open, picked apart in full daylight, Luke felt a strange levity enter his mind. “I always knew it would happen again... Someday, sooner or later, I’d be confronted with the same situation all over again. The same choice. And I wasn’t sure what would happen.” He met Han’s eyes squarely. “When they attacked you, beat you, I wanted to break their necks.”

“And you could have.” A faint uneasiness laced through Han’s tone.

“Yes. I had to let go of my anger first. And I lost precious time.”

 _And if they’d killed you, I don’t think I could live with it_.

Some of it must have registered on his face. Han moved with sudden, predatorous speed to grip his shoulder, all but shaking him.

“Why don’t you just look at the result?” Angry concern shaped each word, a stark expression of refusal. “Whatever you did, it worked. You managed to beat ‘em back, and for all I know, you didn’t break anyone’s neck in the process.”

“And I’m glad for it,” Luke admitted, realizing that he’d turned to Han as if for absolution. Because it seemed grotesque to consider this a victory.

“Good.” Han sat back slowly, ironic humor and satisfaction joining forces on his face.

Relief burned a swift path through Luke’s mind, took him back to the sheer drop of discovery. So much had seemed irretrievable since the battle of Endor. The possibilities he’d imagined. His hunger for change.

His glance wandered across Han, from the bony knee to the strong chin, the glint of water against his collarbone. “Remember when you asked me what it’s like, to touch the Force? The first time I could feel it inside me was awesome. So alive and bright and... overwhelming. Like a sun at close range.” He dropped his gaze to his own right hand where it rested innocuously on a cushion of moss. “But then, when I found out about my father, when I discovered whose legacy it was, it felt like a taint. Something corrupting me from within. For a while, I thought I’d never get that pure feeling back.”

The rain had started to fall softly, unobtrusively, a rustle in the foliage above, fragile circles barely troubling the water. When he looked up, Han studied him with a guarded kind of concern, and Luke set a smile against it. “It’s okay now. It really is.”

“I’ll take your word for that.” Han raised a hand and brushed his knuckles across the side of Luke’s face. “Since we’re about to get wet anyway, why don’t we go for a swim?”

“I’d have to leave my clothes here,” Luke answered mechanically.

“Why, can’t you levitate them across?” A lopsided grin erased the lingering disquiet from Han’s expression. Not waiting for a reply, he slid back into the water.

 _If this is a test of my inner balance, then I’ve certainly failed_. Luke grinned to himself as he undressed in a hurry, contemplating his chances of diving in fast enough to pull Han under. He lowered himself across the yielding moss that scratched softly against his skin.

Han turned where the water rose only to his hip and blinked against the drizzle. The water’s heaviness and pressure marked each step Luke took towards him, then Han looped an arm around his neck and pulled him up close. They kissed with gently building passion, the rain that slid down their faces warmer than the lagoon.

One more day.

Luke closed his eyes tighter and lifted his face into the rain, bathing it as if in light. The claiming warmth of Han’s mouth settled against his throat, but within his mind, the future had already arrived.

* * *

On Nam Korlis, the weather was made by atmosphere generators and the scattered exhaust clouds company buildings belched up all the time. By midday, only a pale rumor of sunlight caught on the flitters’ manic rush in the upper lanes. Luke wove through the snarls of pedestrian traffic on autopilot, his target clear in his sights. From across the street, he watched Han disappear inside the shaded doorway. The old swagger in his step, the vigilance in his body language. Luke waited through all of two minutes before he followed him inside.

The cantina was jam-packed with businesspeople hustling through their mid-meal break. In their quest for free tables, they clutched food trays against their chests like prized booty, exchanging cheerful greetings with fellow captains of industry. An electronic monotone recited the latest stock market trends, providing a bassline to all the professional enthusiasm.

In a booth on the far side, Han had just squeezed himself into the narrow space between a lastoplex partition and the table. His contact shoved a glass at him with a lazy hand.

The drift of restless customers carried Luke past and left time only for a corner-of-the eye appraisal. The man who sat facing Han sported a cultured smile full of ambition. A black neoleather jacket added a designer’s touch of toughness to his smooth, young features that wouldn’t stick to memory longer than a few minutes — a definite advantage in his profession.

Luke seated himself in the booth next to them, according the Bothans who’d claimed it a swift smile. “Please don’t let me disturb you.”

Their glances passed him as if a distant commotion had distracted them from their generously filled plates. Luke leaned back in his seat and focused on the conversation in the next booth, every other sound reduced to so much white noise.

“...and of course my employer was very pleased to hear that you’ve reconsidered our proposal,” a noncommittal voice said.

On the other side of the partition, Han snorted expressively. “Well, I expect to profit from it.”

“Of course.” Plastic clattered softly on the table top. “I’ve been authorized to offer you an advance for your future services. This debit chip is worth thirty thousand.”

“Thirty, huh?” Han whistled through his teeth. “What about the credits I still owe for the shipment we lost?”

“Ah, now, who’s going to be a scrooge about chickenfeed?” A soft laugh embellished that statement. “We’re making a new start here, aren’t we, Captain Solo?”

“You know, when you put it that way,” Han answered grudgingly, “this deal’s actually starting to look good to me.”

That laugh again, reiterated with the precision of a replicating program. “I promise you, it will look even better by the end of this day.” The man’s jacket creaked stiffly with sudden movement, and Luke imagined him leaning across the table. “You’ll be a great asset to our organization, and everyone appreciates that.”

“No need to flatter me.” Han’s comeback carried the perfect Solo grouch. “What’s it gonna be? You want me on standby for cargo runs? I can tell you right now, I still ain’t shipping slaves, and I’ll sooner blow my ship’s hyperdrive than ferry walking torpedoes again.”

“A most misfortunate incident.” The other man made polite noises of commiseration.

“Forget it,” Han said curtly. “Let’s just get down to brass tacks, okay?”

“Your talents and abilities go beyond piloting a ship.” An incongruous note of steel entered the polished voice. “Oh, we’d like you to take charge of particularly important runs, but it would be a serious waste to limit your job profile to mere transfer services.”

“What’s that mean?” Han asked with just the right amount of wariness.

“You’re a man of impressive tactical skills. We have need for that. But there’s someone else who’ll explain all the details to you shortly.” The dramatic pause was perfectly calculated. “Let’s just say that we want you to work at the heart of our organization this time. Interested?”

Han’s silence extended into the blurry background noise, pushing a wedge of tension through the gaggle of voices. Luke stiffened in his seat. Rieekan and Teragk would be delighted to hear about this offer that unlocked a treasury of information, but all he could think of was the steep incline of risk, like a fever curve.

“What if I am?” he heard Han ask. “Where’s the leading man who’ll read me the gospel?”

“I shall take you to him.” The evasion came like a well-worn formula. “In fact, if you’re finished with your drink, we could leave right away.”

All through another thought-bound interval, Han had to be calculating the odds of wrangling more definite clues from his glib business partner-to-be.

“Suits me fine.” Han’s tone dismissed the odds as hopeless. “I suppose you’ve got a transport on standby, right?”

“Naturally.”

“Okay.” Han’s glass clinked against the table’s aluminum surface. “I’ll wanna get this deposit registered first, if you don’t mind. And let me call my partner. He’s bound to worry if I suddenly disappear.”

“Sure,” his contact said coolly. “Tell him to expect you back within the next twenty hours.”

Luke sat back, groping for acceptance among a myriad thoughts, the click of Han’s comlink and the faint buzz of static almost lost in the noise that surrounded them.

“Chewie? — Yeah, it’s me. Listen, I’m off to another meeting, but I’ll have some cash transferred to our business account first. Check it out for me, will ya?” The comlink translated Chewbacca’s howl into distorted electronic noise. “Nah, everything’s fine,” Han said. “But keep the hatch locked and don’t let anyone board ‘til you hear from me. And in case I’m not back in twenty hours, just take the Falcon and the money and blast outta here, okay? — No arguments, pal. Just do it.”

“Your Wookiee partner’s got a fiery temper,” the bland voice observed when Han had cut the channel.

“Yeah, but he’s as loyal as a bad habit and one hell of a pilot. We off now?”

Luke left his seat instantly and made his way towards the door. They’d both anticipated that this could happen, that there wouldn’t be another chance to talk, but apparently that awareness had yet to reach the hazier regions of his mind. His movements felt robotic as if ruthless programming had taken over where conscious resolve faltered.

Han followed his escort at a slower pace, his eyes roving across the crowd until they found Luke. Amidst the soulless congregation of strangers, the recitals of financial gain and the crowded tables, the look that passed between them was as intimate as the touching that had become impossible.

 _Be careful_. Words that required no repetition. Replacing others that hadn’t been said.

 _I want you back_.

Luke reminded himself of the safety margin that guaranteed invisibility as he pursued them down the street, to the Trade Center’s outer reaches, where Han stopped by a public banking terminal. When he turned back from its grubby screen, the look on his face acknowledged several steps taken down a one-way track. And from here, he would sail under a different flag, on his own.

Luke watched him disappear in the chaotic traffic. He leaned against a wall, letting it bear the weight of finality, disjointed thoughts shining with overactive imagination and disbelief. One step away from here, and he’d have to remember.

Several minutes had rolled past when he abandoned his post. The bright sign of a transport station reminded him of his destination. Spaceport facilities. Castor had chauffeured him to Nam Korlis: a precaution in case someone monitored the Falcon’s docking bay and took exception to the company Han kept. From the overcrowded transport cabin, Luke made a call while the city of the rich glided past in slow motion.

Castor was waiting for him in the freighter’s cockpit, all systems ready for liftoff. He listened to Luke’s account with a small frown, occasionally twitching an eyebrow.

“Well, sounds like all went according to plan so far,” he commented. “Pity that you couldn’t tail them right to their home base.”

“Too dangerous.” Luke sat down in the copilot’s chair and strapped in mechanically. “If anyone had noticed, we would’ve blown Han’s cover in a moment. And he seemed to feel that it’s safe for him to go.”

“Gotta trust the man’s instincts.” Castor pursed his lips as he surveyed the control board. “Want me to take you back to Ylab now, to pick up your own crate?”

Luke nodded. “I’ve already said goodbye to Chewie. We can recap the com routines en route.”

“Right.” Castor punched the ignition with a terse motion. “And don’t worry, I’ve got all the codes memorized. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can manage.”

A wash of energy poured through the freighter’s systems. Luke watched his own hands perform the preflight checks and recalled the grip of Han’s long fingers linked through his own. Seized by a sensory memory so sudden and disturbing that reality wavered around him.

Only this morning they’d stood on the porch together, watching the rain, hands resting side by side on the discolored wood of the railing. Through a screen of disbelief, he’d listened to his own voice fumbling through contingencies and precautions.

“I’ll check in with Intell as soon as I’m back on Corellia, make sure they work out a good set of emergency plans in case something goes wrong. Just stay in touch with Castor and don’t take any chances. I’ll take care of rescue arrangements in the meantime. We might have to pull you out if they suspect anything, and you can bet—”

Han stopped the heedless flood with a touch. “Don’t worry. You’ve given me a very good reason to come out of this with my hide intact.”

“Better remember that,” he said sharply, his throat closing up around the words.

“Luke, I can’t really tell you...” Han broke off with one of those spare, eloquent gestures. “Except, thanks for—”

“Don’t,” he’d cut in brusquely. “Don’t say it.”

He could still feel the lock of Han’s arms around him, the jut of an angular shoulder under his hand, the pressure of Han’s mouth on his own, upset and feverish, passionate and angry for too many reasons to count. He looked out through the viewport, at a nondescript sky, his heart taut beneath the skin of isolation. The cockpit’s recycled air stung in his eyes.

All he wanted now was to be alone, to wrap himself around the memory, push it against the darkness inside and assimilate both.

 _This is not the end_.

But it felt like that all the same.

* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> First published as a standalone novel in 2001.


End file.
